A World Full of Monsters
by Fahad09
Summary: When I was first reincarnated I did the very first thing any self-respecting man in my place would do. Check to see if I still had my balls. I did. The next thing I did was try to get my hands on some power. True Power. I chose the Rinnegan. And if I had to kill a few people along the way to get it, well, there was a war going on. No one will notice an extra body or two turning up.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto (shocking isn't it?), just the original concepts and plot in this story. Cover image owned by Mazzat.**

**General Tags: Reincarnated Fic. This is an AU, so Canon plot is out. The only major OC is the main character. No Slash.**

* * *

**Chapter 1: Infancy**

"Will you damn brats keep it down?" The living legend grumbled, his eyes never leaving the tiny hole in the fence that granted him an unobstructed view to the women's hot springs. "What are you going to do if I get caught?"

I stared at the Sannin, my mouth unable to form words as my mind shut down, incapable of comprehending what my eyes was seeing.

Naruto however had no such problem.

"Wait, are you peeping at the girl's hot spring? You-you-you..." Naruto's voice grew steadily louder, filled with a growing indignation and righteous fury. Pointing at the white haired ninja, Naruto all but screeched. "-YOU PERVERT!"

"Pervert?" The Sannin turned his head to look at us, an offended look on his face. "Did you just call me a Pervert? I'll have you know you little brat, that I'm far more than a mere Pervert." He rose up from his crouch, crossing his arms and puffing his chest out as he did so.

"For I am Jiraiya!" Raising his left palm at us, he widened his feet and took a sideways stance. "One of the three Legendary Sannin, S-Ranked Ninja, veteran of two wars, a lover of beautiful women everywhere, author of the famed Icha Icha series and above all else," He slammed his hand onto the floor, releasing a large puff of white smoke that quickly dissipated, revealing him standing on a large orange and blue toad. "I am a Super Pervert!" He announced out with shameless pride.

Beside me, Naruto gaped at the self-proclaimed super pervert as he took up a pose on the toad after his grandiose introduction, a hand pointed straight up in the sky while the other rested on his hip. He wore a satisfied smirked as he looked down at us from the toad's back.

"Sa-Sannin? You mean _the _Sannin?" Naruto took a step backwards in pure shock, eyes widening with disbelief. The Nine-tailed Jinchuriki head shook in denial. "Ne-ne, Hikaru. The old geezer is lying right? There is no way that this pervert could be a Sannin, right? Right?

"…Hikaru?" The confusion in Naruto's voice was clear to anyone listening. I felt a tugging on my sleeve as the blond tried to get my attention. "Hey Hikaru what's wrong? Your face is turning all white? Hey! Answer me damn it, you're scaring me here. Hikaru? Hikaru!"

I could hear how the confusion quickly turned to worry and then panic when I didn't reply, but I could not bring myself to care. Not when my worst fears were beginning to come true. No, no, please no. Dear God not him too! Not another one.

But no matter how hard I tried to reject it, the reality before me would not change. And soon my denials began to fade, steadily replaced with a growing sense of horror as the truth of what I was seeing became irrefutable.

For there before my very eyes stood Jiraiya, but not as I knew him. His hair was a just as I remembered it, a spiky mess of white that stretched past his waist, and his clothing too was the same, a short green kimono with matching colored pants covered by a red coat.

All in all, he was exactly like he should have been. Exact for one tiny detail.

The distinctive bulging in his chest was certainly _not _supposed to be there.

"Ho~," A smirk making its way to Jiraiya's face as _she_ followed my line of sight to her breasts, "Sorry Kid, I ain't into men or little brats for that matter." Misinterpreting my horror with fascination. "Can't blame you for having good taste though."

Yes, Jiraiya, one of the Sannin, rival to Orochimaru, teacher to the fourth Hokage, and one of this world's living legends, was a Girl.

My knees gave way beneath me, depositing onto the hard wet floor that surrounded the hot spring. Vaguely, I heard Naruto calling out to me in concern, but over my despair it sounded like it came from a thousand miles away. I just stared at him-_her,_ misery building up inside of me until I could not hold it in any longer. So I tossed my head back and howled out to the world.

"_Oh Dear god Why? Why him too? Kishimoto you bastard!"_

* * *

At first I could not understand what was going on.

In those first few weeks and months, or however long it was, the world was nothing but a confusing blend of colors and noise, of shivering cold followed by comforting warmth. My mind refused to function properly. It was as if I was in a fevered dream, the few thoughts I could form were nothing but a jumbled up mess that followed no rhyme or reason.

Not that it would have done me any good even had I been able think, as I couldn't even stay awake long enough for it to matter. Back then my consciousness was a fleeting thing, coming and going like the tide. Sometimes I would feel myself rousing, my mind on the brink of truly waking up, only to fade back into the embrace of slumber before I could begin to comprehend anything, dragged back by the perpetual tiredness I felt.

Then one day I simply woke up.

And nothing made sense.

Above me, staring at me with those pale eyes of theirs, something straight out of my childhood stories, was a man and a woman. They loomed over me, appearing like giants to my new infant eyes. At the sight of them, a name instantly popped into my mind.

_Hyuuga._

They gibbered in a language I could not understand or even recognize. Though it sounded vaguely Asian it wasn't Japanese. I spoke the language it definitely wasn't it.

For a while I just laid there, staring up at them as they smiled and cooed down at me, trying to collect my thoughts. Well, it's not like I could have moved even if I wanted to. I don't think I had the strength to lift my over-sized baby head, let alone stand or crawl.

So for what felt like several hours I just watched them from where I was cradled in my mother's arms, as the happy couple talked with one another, occasionally glancing down and sparing me a few words whenever I caught their eyes.

Even when the time came for them to rest, and they placed me into my cradle, exiting the room and shutting the lights behind them, I did nothing but continue to stare up at the dark ceiling, putting my thoughts together.

I didn't even bother trying to delude myself with pretenses of this being nothing but a dream; it was all too real for it to be that. I had always prided myself in being a logical person, even under pressure, so I did not try to make up excuses to deny reality.

I was reincarnated, into a new world at that. One that was supposed to be just fiction and fantasy. I wonder if this made Kishimoto this world's God? I hope not, that prick was an absolute troll and I'd hate to see what he'd do to me if he was.

Anyway, I merely accepted it as fact and moved on.

Maybe the reason why I found it so easy to accept what was happening was because I remembered all too clearly how I died. It's rather hard to forget being murdered by your own son after all. The shock and pain of that betrayal was still fresh in my mind. After going through something like that what was reincarnation? Nothing.

So as I lay there, I asked myself _what should I do now?_

I mean I had already done all the typical things you'd expect in life. Grew up, got a job, started a family, had a couple of kids and then died. Sure it ended badly, but does that mean I have to repeat the entire experience again? Was that what my life was supposed to be? A never ending circle of reincarnation where I did the same thing over and over again?

No. I refused to accept that. I wanted to do something else with this second chance life, something more.

Were I still I child, mentally at least, I would have wanted to have an adventure. I would have wanted to become a hero.

But I knew better than to walk that path. Heroes were not real, nothing but myths, stories we tell ourselves to make the world appear a better place that it did. And the few heroes that might have existed never lived out happy lives; all that awaited them was pain and betrayal. I learned that the hard way.

So, the question remains what should I do?

And it was then, lost in my thoughts in the darkness of that room that I remembered.

In this world there existed something I wanted. A power unmatched by any another. Those Divine eyes of God. Eyes that held power over life and death, that presided over time and dimensions, it ruled over it all. Everything that laid beneath the Heavens were for it command.

Ultimate power given physical form.

The fabled Rinnegan.

Those eyes, I wanted those eyes.

I _will _have those eyes.

No matter what it takes.

Even if I have to break this war torn world in two, the Rinnegan will be _mine. _And I will slaughter anyone who tries to stop me. Be they man, Shinobi or the Tailed beasts, I will kill them all.

I felt my lips twist in a manic smile as laughter bubbled up from my chest and poured out of my throat, "Ha…Haha…Hahahaha-_*cough**cough*_" Ouch, my lungs! My underdeveloped baby lungs, by God do they hurt! I broke down into a coughing fit for several seconds and then the next thing I knew, in defiance to any will of my own, I started crying like a damn baby, "_Wa-Wahhhhh~_."

Called by the sound of my wailing, the door slammed open and my new apparent mother walked in, rushing to my side and cradling me, making comforting sounds all the while.

Ok, change of plans. Before I aim for the Rinnegan, I better start work on growing up first…and maybe get toilet trained or something because _holy shit_ I think I just soiled myself.

This is going to be a whole lot harder than I thought.

* * *

After an embarrassingly long period of crying I was finally able to settle down with some help from my new mother. Being gently rocked in her arms was unexpectedly comforting, and it help settle my raging emotions down rather quickly.

It seems even though my mind, or at the very least my memories, were of that an adult male my body certainly wasn't. This was an infant's body, and along with it came all the instincts of one. Simple things like moving my finger one at a time was beyond me now. Whenever I tried moving my index finger alone, the rest of my fingers will follow after it, causing my hand to clench into a tiny fist.

Great, just great. It seems that along with learning the basics of this world, I was going to have to learn how to control my body from scratch. Learning to walk was going to be a hassle, not to mention going through puberty all over again. At least I knew what to expect this time.

Seeing that I had finally stopped crying, my new mother leisurely slowed her rocking to a halt as she rose me up closer to her face. She said something while wearing a smile, whatever it was I couldn't begin to guess. When I tried speaking back, all the came out of my mouth was gibbering nonsense, just baby talk.

It seems I'm going to have to add learning to talk to the list.

Her smile widened and she cooed down at me, softly trailing a finger down my cheek. Wait a minute, I think I know this woman. I squinted my eyes and tried to get a better look at her, causing her to laugh at my expression.

Yes, I'm sure of it. I've seen this face somewhere before but I couldn't remember where. I don't recall any named female Hyuugas other than Hinata and Hanabi, and she certainly wasn't either one of them. Though she did resemble them more than a little, other than the eyes of course. But then again almost everyone in the Hyuuga clan were related to one another.

A voice called out from somewhere, making her look over her shoulder and smile. A man appeared from behind her, giving a quick kiss on her cheek before he rested his chin on her shoulder and peered down at me.

So this man was my father. Hmm, all in all not a bad looking bloke. Not going to win any male beauty contest or anything, and that long hair of his definitely has to go, but overall not too shabby. Looks like I'm going to end up ok in the looks department-wait, wait, WAIT! I knew this guy! It was Hiashi. Hiashi was my father!

I just gawked up at the head of the Hyuuga clan in utter bewilderment. And it appeared that my face must have been quite a sight because both of my parents broke down laughing at me. I didn't care, I just couldn't stop staring at them.

This confirmed it then. Not only was I born in the Naruto Universe, I was born in the original time line of the story. At first I suspected that I may have been reincarnated into a world similar to one from the story though not the same one but no, it looked like I was in the genuine article.

After gawking at him for a few more second, I relaxed and let lose a chuckle. Well, I tried to chuckle but it came out as an adorable sounding giggle instead but I was honestly too happy to care for the moment.

Oh this was good. No, this was more than just good, this was positively fantastic! I'm in the original timeline, probably the same age as the main cast. Do you know what this means? It means that I would finally get the chance to bash in the faces of some of my most hated characters. Ha, during my childhood I wanted to kick the asses of so many characters from this story so badly it wasn't even funny. If I knew all I had to do was die to get the chance at them, I would have happily offed myself years ago.

First there was the Datebayo-ing, Deus ex machina, talk ninjutsu asshole himself, Naruto. You think your childhood was tough you orange wearing moron? Then I dare you, just dare you to say Datebayo one more god damn time in front of me you little ramen-addict and I'll show you what it really means to have a miserable childhood you little brat.

Then there as Sasuke. The emo prince of the avengers himself. I swear on my soul that the very first thing I'm going to when I meet the emo is sock him right on the nose. I don't give a damn if the entire Uchiha clan are watching I'd do it. The little bastard deserves it and more. He should be lucky I don't neuter him for acting like a little bitch all the damn time.

And there are many more!

God, if you're out there, I just want to say thank you for giving this wonderful opportunity to beat these brats up. Even if I fail to get the Rinnegan, at least I know I'll die happy once I'm through with them.

I was jolted from my thoughts when I felt myself being set down on something solid. Quickly glancing around, I found myself on some kind of dressing table. Oh that's right, I still haven't had my diapers changed from earlier yet, have I?

My mother leaned over me for a few seconds and wiggled her fingers on my tummy, forcing me to squeal in laughter, before she knelt down to retrieve something from one of the lower drawers.

As she rummaged for something below, I took a moment to examine my new mother. Long hair, so dark it turned blue when bathed in light, framing a gentle face. This wasn't a face of someone who lived out in the sun, her skin was too pale and smooth for that. So not a ninja then.

For the life of me I could not remember her name. No matter how hard I tried I simply couldn't remember. Now that I think about, I barely recall anything at all when it comes to this woman, my new mother. All I know about her was she died before the start of the series, she married Hiashi, gave birth to two daughters, Hinata and Hanabi-

-Wait a second. Daughters?

That's right, this woman never gave birth to any sons only girls. I turned my head around trying to look around the room for any signs of other children but I couldn't see any. And since one of the few things I do remember clearly was that she died giving birth to Hanabi so that means I'm her first child.

But that's weird, I'm pretty sure her first born child was Hinata…

Wait. Was I reincarnated as Hinata?

Does that mean…I'm a girl now?

…

…

…

_NOOOOOO~~~~~~~~~~_

My mother practically jumped three feet up into the air, startled by my scream as I began to wail so loudly I was sure that the entire village heard me. She hunched over me, making shushing noises and tried to calm down but I didn't care. I didn't want to be a girl, I'm a man damn it.

I tried reaching down to my groin to check if I still had my tool, but I couldn't reach. My stubbly little hands were too short. I tried sitting up, rocking myself back and forth, but it was no use. My oversized baby head was too heavy for my little neck to lift. And since there was nothing I could do I just dropped back down and wailed my very lungs outs, this time by my own free will instead of any baby instincts.

It was only because I caught sight of the diaper in my mother's hand that I stopped crying. It seemed like she thought that I was crying because I had soiled myself earlier and was going to change my diaper. Well, what are you waiting for? Go ahead and change it then. Quick! Open the package, open the God damn package right now woman! I need to know if it's still there.

Somehow, she sensed my urgency and rushed to undressed me. Using all of the strength I had in my body, I rocked myself slightly upwards when she undressed me and was able to glance down into my groin just for an instant, only to find-

…Oh thank you God. Thank you.

It's there. We're safe, we're safe. False alarm people, it was just a false alarm. The peanuts are real, I repeat, the peanuts are real.

Really, don't scare me like that. That was a close one. If I found out I was reincarnated without my balls I would have killed myself. And I mean literally kill myself. As in, I'd turn my blanket into a noose, tie one end around my cradle the other around my neck, and then leap off.

We just barely avoided the first newborn baby suicide in history.

Hey, I may want the Rinnegan pretty badly but even I'm not willing to give up my manhood for it.

After that, I felt so relieved I just collapsed into an exhausted heap and let sleep finally take its hold on me.

* * *

*several months later*

Underneath the dresser sitting behind me, an ant scurried across the floor. No more than a centimeter in length, it marched to the edge of the wall and snuck into a tiny crack there, one that would lead it outside.

Drawing my attention away, I turned my focus downwards. Looking down through the floor boards, past the hard packed ground and into the sewage network that existed beneath the house, I witness a small family of rats nesting in an old abandoned pipe.

Next I shifted my attention to my left. My head didn't even need to turn in that direction, all I had to do was focus and I could look past the room walls as if they weren't even there and see the courtyard that lay beyond them, where a dozen and more of my relatives trained together or practiced their morning kata. Whenever the hands of those sparring would clash, chakra would erupted like electric sparks, filling the air around them in a dazzling display of flickering lights.

The Byakugan is amazing.

These eyes may not be on par with the Rinnegan but they are something truly extraordinary, in my mind they are just as miraculous as my reincarnation. I could not believe how much I could _see_ now. Every direction, through every obstacle, only limited by the amount my mind could take in at any moment.

Yes, it's official. The Byakugan rocked.

A sharp burning sensation in my eyes, one that had been steadily growing for a while, told me I was quickly approaching my limit. I did not know what would happened if I pushed my eyes any further, but it did not take a genius to realize that burning pain was not a good sign. Reluctantly I turned off the Byakugan, cutting off the flow of my chakra to my eyes and return them to their dormant state.

It was like being plunged into the dark after standing under the noon sun. Where once I could see everything now all I could see what lay before me and even that was limit to the light spectrum of the human eye. After the vision of the Byakugan I may as well have been blind.

And now all I could see through my eyes was the view of the now all too familiar ceiling of the children's play room instead of the 360 vision that I'm already beginning to miss. The sounds of toddlers playing began to register in my ears now that I was no longer so focused on my sight.

Resisting the urge to rub my eyes even as they continued to burn, knowing from experience that it will only make things worse, I sat myself up. Around me a dozen or so children babbled nonsense as they played with their toys, none over the age of four.

"Like this Neji." A voice drifted from my left, catching my attention. Beyond the bars of the crib that currently imprisoned me, was a middle aged lady, one of the caretakers, holding a young toddler in her lap.

She kept trailing her fingers over the palm of the toddler's hand, repeating words of encouragement into his ears.

Little baby Neji looked down at his hands, his face marred with a frown of concentration, as he tried to understand what he was feeling. And oh my god was the little brat adorable. Nothing like the brooding teenager he'd grow up to one day be, right now he looked like a like a cross between a Panda and a water balloon. Even when he scowled in frustration he could not help but look adorable, the way his chubby cheeks puffed out made sure of that.

The caretaker said something else as she trailed her fingers again. Whatever it was I couldn't understand, my grasp of the language being what it was, but I didn't need to know what she was doing, I already knew. She was teaching him how to use his chakra, just like she did with me.

To say I was confused when I was in Neji's place all those months ago was putting it mildly. At the time I had no idea what she was trying to do, only that every time she ran her fingers through my palms it felt like my hand was being dipped in running water. It took me a week to finally realize that what I was feeling was chakra as it poured out of her fingers, and another three days after that to understand that she wanted me to mimic her.

When I finally did succeed in figuring out how to make my own chakra flow out from my hand, which was roughly a month later, she was so surprised that she nearly dropped me. I had thought I may have done something a bit too unusual for a baby but my father put those fears to rest.

His stoic face remained unmoved even after the caretaker took me to him and made me demonstrate what I could do, though there was a look of quiet pride and knowing satisfaction in his eyes that I was learning to recognize. So I guess that meant I didn't do anything too abnormal.

Now when I awakened my Byakugan a week later was a completely different story. I swear I thought his eyeballs would roll out from their sockets from how large they opened before he quickly hide his reaction behind his usual indifference mask. Which is something I didn't understand as awakening the Byakugan was far easier than learning how to use chakra.

Around the room the same scene was repeated. Children who were not playing or resting, were carried by caretakers who then ran chakra across their hands in hopes they'd learn to do it themselves. Some of the older kids, no more than a couple, had activated their Byakugan and were apparently staring blankly ahead, but I knew better. Though none of the kids were anywhere near my current age, the youngest having just turned three just last month, making me ahead of the group my a large margin.

For a while I considered toning down my actions a bit and trying to act like a normal baby until I grew a bit older, but I quickly discarded that option. While it may have been better in the long run there was no way I could have pulled it off. Being a baby was _boring_.

You couldn't walk, you couldn't talk, all you could do it lie on your back as giant head made baby talk to you. Hell this world didn't even have any television so it wasn't like I had access to any easy entertainment. Though considering that baby shows consisted from such horrors as the 'teletubbies' it may have been a blessing in disguise.

But now that I had the Byakugan that all changed. Sure I still couldn't do much other than watch, but at least I get to watch something useful, something that I could learn from. Something that will make me strong.

While it wasn't anywhere near as good as actually practicing, I made sure to watch the clan's ninjas in their training whenever I had the chance. Even though I could not hear their words, or understand them even if I was able to, I still watched them. I observed how they would place their feet just so, how the instructors would correct the forms, how they always seemed to parry blows and rarely block.

I knew little about actually combat, other than that year I took up karate in 8th grade, but what I did know was the basics were essential and even the smallest of flaws could make all the difference. So I watched, watched and watched, until I got so good I could visualize the entire basic katas in my head. It actually reached the point where I even dreamt about watching them training.

And most importantly, I watched how they molded their chakra. I couldn't do the same thing as they did of course. My body's coils were still far too underdeveloped for anything of that level, and would probably break under the strain if I tried. As far as I can tell the Byakugan more or less emerged fully matured at birth and that was the only reason why I and the other children could use it at such a young age. But just because I couldn't mold chakra myself didn't mean I couldn't learn and understand how they did it. So I watched and learned.

And whenever I could not find anyone training in my range of sight, or if I grew tired to concentrate and my mind began to wander, I turned my eyes to the rest of the world that I found myself inhabiting.

I could not see very far at first, only a few dozen meters at most, but even with such a small range there was still so much to see. And with every passing week my eyes grew a little better. I would see a little bit more clearly, a little bit farther, even if only an inch, so I kept pushing them. Besides it wasn't as if I had anything else to do. It was either this or stare up at the ceiling in a constant state of perpetual boredom.

So after allowing my eyes to rest for a while, I leaned back on my bedding, tuned out all the noises from around me and opened my Byakugan, and a new world unfolded before my eyes for me to explore.

Hmm, what's this? Is that my Dad? What he still doing in the bedroom at this time in the morning? Normally he's off working somewhere. And is that my Mom- _OH HELL NO!_

I looked away as fast I could from the fornicating couple, trying to erase the image of my parents having sex from my mind but it was no use. The image was seared into my mind as it was done with a branding iron and it will just not go away.

_God damn it Hiashi!_ It's nine o'clock in the freaking morning and there are kids around. I mean I'm happy for you and all but dear lord I did not want to see that. Even though they weren't my real parents, I did not want to see my new mom getting it on- _Ahhh! _Don't think about it, just don't freaking think about it.

Just look somewhere else to distract you, like…like where I'm looking at right now? Hmm. Where am I? I reflexively threw my sight as far away from my parents and I don't think I've looked in this room before. That's weird, I was pretty sure I looked through every room my eyes could reach. Well, everything except the toil-

Wait, is this the toilet- _Ahh! My eyes!_

I take it back, the Byakugan _sucks_.

* * *

"Now open wide."

I glared down at the offending spoon that was filled will a foul sludge that may have been, in the looses sense of the word, food. I shifted my eyes up to my primary caretaker, Nanako, and gave her a look of such hatred that any sane man would have run away in fear.

Unfortunately as I had long ago discovered Nanako lacks any sense of self-preservation because instead of fleeing for her life, she instead continued to try to force the spoon into my tightly clenched mouth.

"Come on Hikaru-sama," she told me, "it's good for you."

If it's so good for me then why don't you eat it then? Damn it woman I want some meat. Beef, chicken, I'd even make due with fish or even some scrambled eggs, just not this mush of rabbit food you keep trying to feed me.

_Stop that_, swatting the spoon as she tried to force it into my mouth. I glared back at her with all my strength as I resisted her attempt. I swear woman, if you feed me that crap one more time I will slap you.

When it became apparent that I would not budge, she changed tactics and tried praising me instead, "Good children are the ones who eat their food Hikaru-sama. Now who's a good boy?"

Not me you hag. You want a good boy, then go get yourself a god damn dog and leave me alone. But I wasn't stupid enough to say a thing. I knew despite her grandmotherly appearance, Nanako had the heart of the devil and she was not above using dirty tricks to get what she wants. So instead of answering I just crossed my arms before me and leveled my best killer glare at her.

Unfortunately my killer glares are nowhere as effective as they used to be now that I'm in a two year old body.

"Ohh, don't you look so cute when you brood Hikaru-sama." The woman actually had the audacity too coo at me.

OK now that's crossing the line! "I don't brood-" a spoon was shoved into my mouth as I tried to tell the old woman off, and quickly depositing it's contented before I had the time to so much as blink.

…_Oh that conniving little bitch!_

"There, now that wasn't so bad wasn't it?" Nanako set the spoon and bowl down before picking be off from the high chair she trapped me in earlier. "Really Hikaru-sama, for someone who acts so smart all the time, you only show your true age at moments like this."

She gently set me on the ground before shooing me away. "Run along now Hikaru-sama, I've got work to do and I'm sure you want to get back to your books."

_You may have one this round woman, but this is far from over!_

I was however smart enough to keep my thoughts to myself as I turned and ran away. The last time I talked back to her, Nanako force fed me another bowl full of that mush. See? A Devil I tell you.

Still, now that I was finally free from her clutches I could get back to work. Turning the corner I sprinted down the corridor, ignoring the servants and the occasional off-duty ninja who always made sure to give me a polite bow as I passed. It was a little bit weird at first having grown adults bowing to a toddler but I got used it fast, and now it was more of an annoyance than anything.

After turning two more corners and sprinting down as many halls, I skidded to a stop as I reached my destination. Before me a pair of large wooden door loomed. They were completely different from the sliding panels, _shoji_, that acted as entryways for the rest of the compound.

The closest of the two guards that stood on either side of the door, one of the few that were stationed inside of the compound instead of outside or patrolling the perimeter, held the door open at my approach, granting me entrance to the room within.

Giving him a quick nod of thanks, there is no way I could have opened the doors with my tiny body, I slipped in and the guard swiftly shut the door behind me. Quickly walking up to the railing before me, I paused and took a moment to take everything in and properly appreciate the room. It was, to put it simply, heaven.

I was standing next to the railing of the second floor landing. Below me were rows after rows of wooden shelves, each filled to brim with scrolls and books. The lighting that hung of the ceiling clearly illuminated the place despite its lack of windows, revealing the few figures that silently perused through the books. Some were sitting on the handful of desks set to one side of the room, carefully scanning through the delicate scrolls.

This here is the Hyuuga Clan Library, and is perhaps the most wonderful place in this entire planet. It has scrolls that were so old that they were written from the time before the founding of the Hidden Villages. They span every range of topics imaginable, from chakra theory, to 'modern' medicine to history and everything else I could possibly think of. There were even some scrolls that were rumored to have been written from the time of the children of the Sage of Six Paths, making them over four hundred years old, though I couldn't get my hands on a copy so I couldn't be sure.

And perhaps the primary reason for the library, were the scrolls that held information on every fighting style and ninjutsu techniques that the clan has ever encountered in its history. While many of these techniques are useless to the Hyuuga as a whole, either we lacked the prerequisites to use them or they clash with our style of fighting, they could still teach us how to counter and fight anyone who used those techniques.

With our eyes we could see how out enemy's jutsu's functioned, and while we couldn't mimic it like the Sharingan could, we could understand how they worked and through that figure out how to deal with them, should the need ever arise. And on the few occasions that we ever find anything useful, we reverse engineer the technique before integrating it into out fighting style. It was through this method that the Gentle Fist was perfected over the centuries.

I hadn't known the place even existed until a few months ago. I was only given permission to enter after I had learned to read and had exhausted the entire supply of books available to me.

Speaking of which, learning to read was far easier than learning to speak. For some reason that I could not understand, Kanji seemed to exist in this universe. The Japanese language didn't, neither did Chinese, but somehow their writing system did. After spending several days pondering the enigma I gave up and chalked it up to one of the world's unexplained mysteries.

Still, for all of my progress I doubted they would have allowed me in here had I been an ordinary child, no matter how much of a prodigy I was turning out to be. It seemed that being the son of the man in charge and clan heir to boot has its perks.

That's right, nepotism for the win.

For the last few months I've been spending every waking moment I could in here. Researching the world and, most importantly, the secrets of chakra. It was the one thing that the memories of my former life could not help me with, so I was understandably desperate for any information I could get my hands on.

I would stay here from after dawn to dusk every single day without leaving. Ok, so I tried to stay without leaving but that damn she-devil Nanako wouldn't let me. She'd pop in here several times a day to drag me by the ear out of here, forcing me to eat any missed meals and even play with the other kids. Which I do not need to tell you was an incredibly boring experience. Ever have an intellectual conversation with a three year old? No? Than consider yourself lucky because it usually involves them picking their noses and rubbing their boogers all over you.

The only time I'm not here by my own will is during my morning run. Let me start by saying how much I hated running. I always did and always will. But I knew it was crucial to get in a health shape to achieve my long term goals and I had always been told it was important to get into the habit early on, so I ran.

Every morning I would run with the some of the older kids, six year olds who had just begun their training. The instructors wouldn't allow me to train with them no matter how much I pleaded with them, deeming me to be too young to start, but they did allow me to join them in their run, finding no harm in it.

And I must admit that it was much harder than I thought. Even though this body was much stronger than any two year old had the right to be, probably due to all the chakra it held, it was still a child's. Just trying to match the six years old for their morning run tuckered me out for the entire day, and that's without the actual combat training the kids had to go through afterwards. Something I'm no doubt going to hate when the time came for me to go through them myself.

And that is why I spent most of my time here. My experience with running taught me that my body was still far too underdeveloped to properly train other than practicing with my Byakugan. So if I could not train my body, I decided to train my mind. Knowledge was a power equal to any other in this world, sometimes more so.

So I spent my days reading and running, slowly growing stronger as I did.

* * *

"Get up."

The voice commanded harshly, piercing through the ringing that filled my head.

"Get up, Hikaru-sama. The fight is not over." It repeated, not even a hint of infliction in its voice. Just cold detachment.

_Jeez, _I get it already.

Obediently I placed my hands beneath me and shoved myself up, ignoring how pain flared through my body when I did. Blood dripped down my lips and spilled onto ground, staining the tightly packed floor crimson.

With another solid push, I was able to force myself onto my feet though I had to keep my hands on my knees to stay up. After one more push I managed to straight up, though I did end up wobbling for a second before I found my balance. I reached a hand out to gently probe my throbbing jaw, but quickly snatched it away when it flared with pain.

Raising my face so that I look ahead of me, I saw the cause of my bruised jaw trying and failing to hide a superior smirk behind an impassive mask. At the age of nine, the kid still hasn't mastered the art of wearing the Hyuuga poker face that we were infamous for.

Seeing me back on my feet, the boy, I had no idea what his name was, took up a stance. Ignoring the bone deep weariness the filled my body, I lifted my arms and took a mirroring stance, feeling as if my limbs were cased in blocks of concrete.

Before I could so much as blink he charged me, his hand streaking towards my chest. Yet for all of it speed I could see it. I could tell exactly where the blow will land, on the right side of my chest, precisely three inches below my shoulder. I could even the picture the proper response, a strike to his left wrist with my right, knocking the blow off course. Then a counter to his side while he was still knocked off balance.

Yet no matter how well I could picture it my head, reality was completely different.

I raised my hand to deflect, but even as I moved I could tell I wouldn't make it. For all of the greater distance he had to travel, his strike will hit my chest before I could stop it. No matter how fast I tried to move I, along with everyone else watching, knew that he would be faster.

Having no choice, I aborted my attempt at a parry, and tried to dodge the blow instead. Pulling my shoulder back, pivoting on my back leg to avoid the blow, and I succeeded if barely. I managed to pull back far enough that the strike missed me by an inch. But at the moment I was so off balance that I could not avoid the following blows.

I bent over double as I felt a hand bury itself into my belly, before I was sent tumbling backwards by an open handed uppercut hit in my chin.

The world went spinning around me as I was sent tumbling along the dirt packed floor, almost reaching to the edge of the sparing circle before I bled off enough momentum to stop.

"Get up, Hikaru-sama" The instructor commanded scarcely a second after I had skidded to halt, not even bothering to check up on me.

As I once again forced myself to my feet, ignoring how the world continued to spin around me, I thought back to how I had gotten myself into this mess.

It was customary for children of ninja clans, or at the very least the Hyuuga clan, to begin their training at the age of four. Though calling it training was a bit of a stretch, as they were more of a practice run than the real thing. Other than stretches, all other exercises were hidden in the form of games.

Ever play cat's cradles? That's hand sign training. Hide and seek? With a bit of helpful instruction and a couple of minor tweaks to the rules, it became a stealth and tracking exercise. Overall there was nothing that would have brought to mind ninja training just by looking at it. It was deemed too detrimental in the long run for children to start any strenuous training before the age of six.

Though they seemed to be willing to make an exception when it came to me.

Just a few weeks away from my fourth birthday they had separated me from the other children my age and tossed me in with the rest of the six years old. At first there were some concerns that I may have been too young to start sparring but they were all put to rest after the first session.

I had beaten them all.

Not that it was anything to brag about. Ninjas in training or not they were just kids. Most of them didn't even know how to make a proper fist yet, and the few that did telegraphed their punches so badly that I could see them coming a mile away. One time, all I had to win was side-step a punch and stick my foot out. The poor kid actually broke down crying after he tripped.

So they decided to up the ante.

And that's how I ended up getting my ass kicked by a nine year old.

"You're thinking too much Hikaru-sama." Our instructor and the current referee for the match informed me. He stood outside of the ring drawn into the ground of the courtyard, and stared impassively at me, uncaring for my bleeding, injured state. "While your form is excellent and your responses to your opponents strikes are the proper ones, your reactions are too slow. You spend too much time thinking and not enough moving, you must learn to move without thought."

I know. _Jeez_, do I ever know.

I had already figured out my problem since my very first spar with these kids.

I had no reflexes, no muscle memory. Even though I haven't been slacking off these four years everything I trained for was mental not physical. I had watched fully grown ninjas train every day for the majority of my new life until I reached the point that I could see and understand their movements. Compared to them these kids might have been moving in slow motion.

But it doesn't matter how slow these kids moved in my eyes if I moved even slower than they did.

To think, that when I was first brought here I had been so sure of myself that I had all but swaggered into the ring of my first spar, confident in my victory. Well that all changed when not even a second later a palm strike to my face broke my nose along with my arrogance.

I had realized my mistake almost immediately. My mind may have known the correct response but my body didn't. Whenever I wanted to block the blow I had to consciously move my arms into position, whenever I want to dodge a strike I needed to consciously command my feet to move. And there lies the problem; the lack of any proper reflexes slowed me. It was only a minor delay, barely even a split second in reaction time, but that split second made all the difference.

It had been a week since that first loss and I hadn't won a single spar yet. Hell, I don't think I was even able to get in a solid blow against any of these kids. Even against the least talented of the bunch, the size advantage was simply too large for me to gap. Their arms gave them far better reach, and their longer legs made them faster.

All in all, I was getting my ass kicked.

Repeatedly.

By - and I cannot possibly stress this enough - _nine year olds._

This was 8th grade karate class all over again.

I felt warmth pool in mouth and spat out the blood that had gathered there as I stood up again, though my legs wouldn't quite hold me up and I kept swaying. Through we weren't allowed to use the proper Gentle Fist for now, only the chakra-less version of it, it still hurt like you wouldn't believe.

That's why the clan always had at least one medical-nin available at the training fields at all times. Good thing about medical ninjutsu is that you can get the crap beat out of you and they'll fix you back up in time for your next fight.

_Lucky me._

"Are you stopping Hikaru-sama?" The trainer finally asked when I have failed to take up a stance. At first the words didn't properly register in my mind, so foreign were they to my train thought that I could not even comprehend them.

"Stopping?" I repeated dumbly and turned to give the trainer a question look, then everything clicked and I understood.

"No, Sensei." Though I tried to sound respectful, the words came out as a snicker. I felt the cut on my lip split open and dribble blood down my chin as I responded. "I'm not done yet."

Maybe I took a bigger blow to the head than I thought, or the maybe the entire week of pain and exhaustion finally caught up to me, but at the moment I found his words so damn absurd. I knew that I could have walked away from this. That with single word of complained I would have been sent back with a younger group of kids. My father and many of the clansmen may have had high expectations of me but they were not sadistic, even they would not force me to continue this training if I had told them to stop. Some of those who occasionally watch me 'train' actually seemed to hope that I would after seeing the results.

But I never said a single word of complaint…

Because I this was exactly what I wanted.

Sure this training hurt. And by God did it hurt. It hurts, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts. But even though it hurts so damn much….

I knew that there was no better way to get stronger.

Even I knew I was behaving recklessly and maybe even a little bit mad, but I also knew I had no other choice but to walk this path. Not if I had wanted to survive for long.

In this world there lived monsters. They walked on two legs, saw the world through two eyes and listen through two ears just like anybody else. Yet for all that they looked and sounded like men, they were monsters.

Orochimaru, Nagato, Madara, the list goes on and on. They could massacre armies and conquer nations alone in the span of a day. These were beings that have long ago shed their human limitation and became something more.

And one day I had to fight them all. Of this I had no doubt.

So I needed to get strong. I didn't have time to wait around and relax. If I wanted to live, no if I wanted to _win, _I needed to grow as strong as possible, as fast as possible.

If I had taken the proper course and trained like I was supposed to have been, I had no doubt I would have grown strong, unusually so. With the advantages my reincarnation gave me it wouldn't have been difficult for me to have been hailed as a prodigy, an up and coming genius. Just like Neji was.

But it wouldn't have been enough.

Not to defeat them. Not to kill those monsters, it wouldn't have been anywhere near enough. To kill a monster, you had to have the strength of one.

I had to push myself. Harder than anyone, farther than anyone, I had to push myself and become strong. And that is why it will be here in this training ground, through my blood and suffering, that the Hyuuga monster will be born.

So instead of listening to common sense and stopping like any sane person in my place would have done, I turned back to my opponent and took a stance, ignoring the warmth that dripped down my chin. For some reason I could not understand the boy began to back away, a frightened look on his face.

Huh, now what was that about?

Well, it didn't matter as one of the surrounding students jeered at him, he stopped backing away and flushed red. When he next looked to me, all his pretense of calm serenity was abandoned as his face twisted up with embarrassed fueled rage, before he began stalking back towards me.

I widened my feet and prepared to meet the boy's charge. All for desire become strong.

The very strongest.

…

…

…Though I still got my ass handed to me again that day.

_By a freaking nine year old!_

* * *

Shadows danced on the wall, born from the moonlight that drifted through the room's window, the only source of illumination in an otherwise pitch black room.

The Hyuuga estate has always been a silent place. Even in the middle of the day there were hardly any loud noises, and never any yelling or shouting not even during training, as everyone carried themselves with a quiet dignity.

At night it was worse. As a clan that generally woke with the coming dawn, most of the household fell asleep soon after sunset. This left the place almost deafeningly silent during the night. Only the occasional sound of creaking of wood as the guards patrolled the corridors breaking the otherwise silent monotony.

In the quite of the night, the faint almost inaudible ticking of the clock sound unnaturally loud to my ears. It was the only thing I could hear in the darkness other than the steady beating of my heart.

Wrapped up in the blankets of my futon, I stared at the dancing shadows of my bedroom wall, making sure to keep my head faced away from the window. I was alone in my room, like I usually was when I slept, but I knew I would not be for long.

Every few minutes I flicker open my Byakugan, looking to see if the he had arrived yet. And in between I would count the beats of my heart to pass the time as I strained my ears all the while, listening to any signs of the night's unwelcome, but not unexpected visitor.

Tomorrow, I would officially become four years old. My birthday, an event that I was beginning to learn to loath. As the clan heir, I didn't have the privilege of having a quiet birthday party. No, every year I was forced to dressed up in the most uncomfortable clothing imaginable and then paraded around like a doll in front of our esteemed guests.

In any other circumstance I would not have given the slightest damn about my upcoming birthday other than annoyance. This year would not have been any different if I had not overheard one of the clan's Ninjas discussing the Kumo delegate that had arrived in Konoha just this morning to sign the peace treaty agreement.

To think that I had almost forgotten about it.

_The Hyuuga Affair._

On Hinata's, or mine as the case may be, fourth birthday one of the members of the Kumo delegate would break into Hyuuga compound and attempt to kidnap the clan heir.

It is due to tonight's event that Hizashi, Neji's father and my uncle, would die. And the final result would be a rift between the main house and the branch house of the clan, along with the souring the relationship between Kumo and Konoha for years.

And of course there was the tiny little matter of me being kidnapped.

In other words a complete clusterfuck for all involved.

So naturally I'm going to try to change it.

The rustling of leaves came from my window, and I instantly flooded chakra into my eyes in response. Immediately the darkness disappeared as my Byakugan awakened and I could now see the world around me as clearly as it were mid-day.

I quickly scanned the window and the area immediately around it for the perpetrator, making sure to keep perfectly still and show no sign that I was awake in case he was watching. I couldn't find anyone at first, but I knew I heard something so I kept looking and looking until I found-

A stray cat.

I slumped back into my bed, my heart beating so fast in my chest that it almost sounded like jackhammer. Jeez, I got to calm down, my nerves won't last the night if I kept jumping over every little thing.

My plan to stop this was simple. I knew I couldn't warn anybody about the kidnapping, not without raising more questions than I was willing to answer. So that only left one option, capture the kidnapper alive.

The entire Hyuuga Affair stemmed from the death of one of the delegates. Delegates whose safety was promised by the Hokage himself. Kumo probably claimed that entire kidnapping was staged by us after we assassinated the delegate. And the sad part is, that explanation was more than plausible. Going by the books I've read, Konoha ninjas had assassinated people for gain only to plead self-defense in more than one occasion in the past.

So all I had to do to fix it was make sure that the delegate did not die. Easier said than done but fortunately I had a plan. It wasn't much of a plan but it was simple and workable, which was the most important thing.

I was going to wait for my kidnapper to break into my room and stop him. Now I had no delusions on my ability to fight a fully grown and trained ninja when I could not even beat nine years old ninjas in training. Though my spars against them were starting to look like proper spars recently rather than the one-sided beat downs they were a week ago.

No, all I wanted to do was stall him. A chakra infused blow to the diaphragm or throat will be enough to stun him. So all I had to do is pretend I was asleep, waiting for him to get near me and sneak in a surprised blow, before screaming my lungs out and waking up the entire household.

Now normally I would have never even considered a plan this risky, especially when it was my life on the line, but that's the beauty of the entire thing, I wasn't in any danger even if I screwed up.

Kumo wanted to kidnap me because they wanted the power of the Byakugan. And they would not have been willing to take such a risky gamble if all they would gain at the end of it was a single pair of eyes. No what Kumo wanted was a bloodline of their own, an entire clan.

In other words they wanted to breed me.

A four year old would not be too hard to indoctrinate and be made loyal. And when I become of age they planned to toss some girls at me to impregnate until there was a dozen little me's running around. That's right, they would force me to have sex…lots and lots of sex with a ton of women for…years….huh, why was I so against this again anyway?

I'm pretty sure there was a good reason but I could not think of it at the moment…

Anyway, that meant that no matter how tonight's events panned out, I would be getting out of this unharmed. The proof of that is that the kidnapper never tried to harm Hinata even when Hiashi was attacking him.

I was the goose that laid the golden egg and neither side wanted to harm a single hair on my head.

So, now everything was set, all that remained was to wait for kidnapper to appear. And since I had no clear idea what time the kidnapping will occur, other than it was during the night, I had to make sure to stay on guard the entire night. I could not risk being half asleep when the time came.

….So all I have to do now is wait.

…

…

…

You know, at first this was actually nerve breaking but it was turning out to be rather boring and fast. Waiting in bed while pretending to be asleep is much harder that I thought it was going to be.

Shifting around a little bit, I looked up at the clock hanging from the wall in front of me.

_10:40_

…It's going to be a long night.

* * *

My cheeks flared in pain as I pinched them, forcing my eyelids that threatened to shut wide open.

This was the third time already that I had to resort to physical pain to prevent myself. It was as times like these that I truly hated being four again. You have no idea how hard it was to force yourself to stay up late when you were a kid.

Dear god you damn kidnapper, hurry the hell up and get here. It's bad enough that you want to abduct me, but now you want to ruin my bed time too? What a prick.

Pinching myself again when I felt sleep start to overcome me, I glance back up at the clock to see how much longer I had to wait.

_11:05_

….

This was going to suck.

* * *

All right, this was no longer funny. I almost fell asleep this time and I can't afford something like this happening again. Not when I may end up getting kidnapped at any minute. I need to keep my mind distracted if I wanted to stay awake. This called for drastic measures.

_99 bottles of beer on the wall, 99 bottles of beer._

_Take one down, and pass it around, 98 bottles of beer on the wall_…

* * *

_782 bottles of beer on the wall, 782 bottles of beer._

_Take one down, and pass it around, 781 bottles of beer…_

* * *

2_,207 bottles of beer on the wall, 2,207 bottles of beer._

* * *

_Take one down, and pass it around, and then there are no more bottles of beers on the wall._

There! I finished the damn game three entire times already, increasing the numbers of bottles each round and I still haven't been kidnapped. What's taking the guy so long? I mean it's got to be approaching dawn by now.

I glanced up at the clock.

12:21

…

Oh you have to be shitting me.

* * *

Alright, enough of the beer bottle game. If I had to say that line one more time I'd snap. I got to think of something else to do to keep me awake but what?

…How about a song?

* * *

_Oh, if you wanna be my lover, you gotta get with my friends._

* * *

_Go-Go Power Rangers! Nah-na-na-na! Go-go Power Rangers, you mighty morphing Power Rangers!_

* * *

_And I~~~~, will always~, Love you~~_

* * *

_Gotta catch 'em all, Gotta catch 'em all, Yeah!_

_Zubat, Primeape, Meowth, Onix-_

* * *

Ok, I have exhausted every song I could remember except for the backstreet boys and I'll be damned if I sing any of them.

And where the hell is this guy? Shouldn't he have been here by now? I knew the security around the compound was tight but come on, I want to sleep already. What time was it anyway?

01:45

You know what, screw the plan and forget about capturing this guy alive. I'm going to murder the asshole with a spoon when I get my hands on him.

* * *

Bleary eyed, I stumbled out of my room, dark rings no doubt circling my eyes. I was so exhausted that I almost tripped over my own feet twice, and barely managed to stop myself from running face-first into one of the many house servants that were frantically running around the corridor.

Morning light rained across the hardwood floors through the many windows lining the hallway, and I could hear birds chirping outside as they cheerfully greeted the new day. I had never hated anything more than the sound of their cheer. All around me people rushed around, something that was more than a little bit unusual in this household.

Looking around I spotted a pair of gossiping servants and walked up to them. When they didn't notice me right away, I tugged on one of their sleeve.

"Oh, Hikaru-sama. Please forgive me I didn't see you there- Hikaru-sama! Are you alright? You look dreadful." The servants eyes widened in surprise when she took in my state. I must have been quite a sight, after having spent the entire night awake and alert.

Being in no mood for pointless chit-chat, I cut straight to the heart to the matter. "What's going on?"

It seemed like the servant in question was also quite keen in spreading some gossip as well, because she dropped the matter of my appearance and leaned towards me before stage whispering. "Well Hikaru-sama, it seemed that there was an intruder last night. The guards caught him before he was able to get too far in and had no trouble subduing him. Normally this would not have caused such a commotion, but when the guards presented him to Hiashi-sama this morning, he realized that the intruder was actually one of the Kumo visitors that arrived yesterday for the peace treaty."

I toned the rest of her words out, I heard enough. I felt the edge of my lips twitch as I fought back the urge to scream in frustration.

I wonder why I didn't realize something so obvious before.

This is the Hyuuga clan. A group of people who had eyes that could see through walls and spot an ant from a mile away. There is no way someone, no matter how skilled in stealth, could successfully sneak into the compound undetected, not when there was over a dozen Hyuuga guards patrolling the place and a hundred more resting.

It was impossible. Which meant there was no way that anyone could ever get close enough to kidnap the clan heir, be it me or Hinata.

In other words, the entire Hyuuga affairs could not have possible happened. The entire thing was pulled out of a certain author's ass just for the sake of entertainment…

And because of said author, I had to say up all night in a bundle of nerves for no reason.

…It's official…

_KISHIMOTO YOU'RE A FUCKING TROLL!_

* * *

***Chapter End***

**Author's note:**

**Now, something that always bothered me with the typical reincarnation story is that every character wants to save the world or help people. That made no sense to me. You are born in the world where people can possess power that makes them Gods in all but name but almost none of the reincarnated people want it? Well, this in my take one it.**

**The MC in this fic is going to be utterly ruthless. While he will still have a heart, he isn't here to help people. Don't expect him to be the type who willingly hold the hands and helps the other characters in the story grow up. While he'll make exception for those very few he cares for, don't he won't go out of the way to help a stranger. In that sense, he's like you and me. How many of us can say that we go out of our way to help total strangers ever day? every week? Not many I'd guess.**

**While it won't be apparent at first, within a few chapters it will become clear how frighteningly ruthless he can be. **

**Oh, and I'm sure some of you noticed for a someone who prides himself on his logic and clam mind he broke down rather easily when it came to Jiraiya's gender. That was done on purpose and is a clue for future events. That's all I'm saying for now.**

**Also in case it isn't obvious this is an AU. So please don't be upset if things different from Canon happen.**

**Oh, and before I forget, it seemed that a lot of people had pictured Jiraya in this story incorrectly so I will post a link to the pic that inspired it on my profile.**

**Anyway, I hope you liked it and please tell me what you think.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2: Childhood**

* * *

_My knee is still shaking, like I was twelve,  
Sneaking out of the classroom, by the back door.  
A man railed at me twice though, but I didn't care.  
Waiting is wasting for people like me._

_Don't try to live so wise.  
Don't cry 'cause you're so right.  
Don't dry with fakes or fears,  
'Cause you will hate yourself in the end._

_Don't try to live so wise.  
Don't cry 'cause you're so right.  
Don't dry with fakes or fears,  
'Cause you will hate yourself in the end._

* * *

In a futile effort to try and get a few more minutes of sleep, I shifted over to my side and squeezed my eyes shut, trying to block out the sunlight that poured through the windows, past the thick curtains that he had just drawn open.

"Good morning Hikaru-sama, it's time to get up." A voice that held far too much cheer than should have been legally allowed this early in the morning called out to me. "And praise the sun, it's such wonderful weather we're having isn't it? It's going to be another great day, I can tell."

The sheer joy he spoke with as he greeted the new day could not be denied. It brought to mind a baby's laughter, the sound of children playing. It was a voice filled with so much happiness, innocence and nigh endless optimism that it could've coaxed a smile from the even the bitterest of souls.

I had never wanted to stab anyone more in my life.

"You say the same thing ever single morning." I grumbled out as I tossed my blanket over my head, trying to block out the light. "Even when it's raining."

"Why would a little bit of water prevent us from enjoying all the wonders that a new day would bring Hikaru-sama?" He questioned as he began to approach me, his footsteps on the wooden floor giving him away. "Quite the opposite, the life giving water that is blessed upon us by the rain would only make the day a better one. Oh praise the rain."

My blanket was yanked out of my hands and with it my last layer of protection from the sunlight. I resisted the urge to flip myself over onto my stomach and try to get just a few more minutes of sleep, knowing from experience that it would only get worse for me if I tried. So I simply surrendered to the inevitable and forced myself to get up.

"Ok I'm up, I'm up." Grousing, I pushed myself up, rubbing the sleep from my eyes as I threw my legs over the side of my bed. When I could finally see clearly I looked up to find the all too familiar face of the perpetrator smiling happily down at me. I levelled my best glare back up at him in turn. "Why the hell do you have to be so damn cheerful all the damn time Neji?"

Neji's smile just grew wider. "What's there not to be cheerful about? I'm blessed with a great father and mother, a perfectly healthy body and was born into a powerful and noble family. When life is so wonderful, how can I not be cheerful?"

I narrowed my eyes at him, an idea dawning on me. "And what would you do if your life wasn't so wonderful anymore? What if something terrible happened to you, say, oh I don't know-" I pretended to think on it for a moment, "Your father happened to be murdered before your eyes, would you finally stop being so cheerful then?"

At the moment I was seriously contemplating murdering my uncle's, if only to put an end to the abomination that Neji has become and turn him back to his original self.

Neji frowned mournfully as he thought on the matter. "Death is truly a terrible thing but like most things it is an unavoidable part of life, something that comes to us all. And while I would miss my father dearly, I know in my heart that he would not want me to suffer because of his passing. And that is why," Neji smiled at me with all the benevolence of a saint, "I would carry on as I am, being happy, because I know that is what he would have wanted."

And with that, all my hopes were dashed.

Jumping out of bed, I reached out and grabbed the clothing that Neji was holding out for me. One of the small but peculiar changes to my life was the change in my showering routine. For one thing, I no longer took showers but baths instead. It took some getting used to taking a bath before bed rather than after, which was the norm here. Though I have to admit, it is nice not having to go through the hassle of cleaning myself up every morning. Just a quick change of clothing and a brush of my teeth then I was done.

"Hey Neji," I asked as I pulled my shirt off and tossed it onto my bed, "was somebody singing just now?"

"Singing?" Neji took on a thoughtful look before shaking his head. "No, no one was singing as far as I could tell. Why?"

I halted halfway through putting a my new shirt, and thought back to that half-forgotten melody that filled my dream - _'Cause you will hate yourself in the end – _I gave away my head a quick shake and continued dressing. "Nothing. It was nothing Neji, just a dream. Don't worry about it."

"If you say so." Neji sounded a little dubious but shrugged before changing the subject. "So are you looking forward to your first day in the Academy?"

I couldn't stop myself from frowning as I pulled on my pants, "Well, it'll be interesting at the very least."

Truth be told, I did not even know why I was even being sent to the Academy. There was nothing for me to learn there, not at my level. Its coursework was designed to transform ordinary children with little or no form of formal training into competent Genin. And let's face it, I was the farthest thing possible from being either ordinary or untrained.

The few things that I could still be taught there I could just as easily learn at home, from the library or from one of my private tutors. There was absolutely nothing for me to gain from going to the Academy yet I had no choice in the matter. My father had order me to attend and for the life of me I had no idea why.

Over the years Hiashi has been forced to put up with a lot of shit from me, as I kept sticking my nose in all sorts of places a little child had no place being, and yet he has always given me a lot of leeway. Outside of training, where he was an absolutely brutal son of a bitch, he had always been a little soft when it came to me.

Maybe it was because I was a 'prodigy', but so long as I upheld my duties as the Clan Heir and continued to maintain my progress in training, he would more or less give into any of my demands. Well, reasonable ones at least.

While I understood _why_ he out-right rejected my request that he try and get an autograph from Itachi for me when he next saw him, and even why he had prohibited me from asking him myself for one should we ever meet, seeing as we had the whole clan rivalry thing going on between the Uchiha and Hyuuga, it still sucked.

Yet on this one matter, he was being unnaturally stubborn and would not budge an inch. Hiashi had even forbidden me from fast-tracking and skipping any years. So no matter how well I did, I was expect to spend the entire six years at the Academy, which I got to tell you is going to suck.

Not that I was in any hurry to become a Ninja or anything, not yet at least. I was still six and there was no way I was going to allow myself to be sent to the battlefield this early. Adult mind or not, I'd get killed out there. I had always intended to wait until I was at least 10 or so before deciding if I was ready to become a Genin, but by the looks of things the matter was being taken out of my hands.

By the time I was done with my musing I found that I had finally finished dressing, and turned to face a smiling Neji, who was already dressed up, having prepared long before he came to wake me. Damn him for being a morning person.

"The Academy is a wonderful place Hikaru-sama, I believe you may end up liking it more than you expect."

"It's not a matter of me liking it or not," I told him as I made my way through the side door and into my personal bathroom. "It's the level of training that I'm worried about. I didn't push myself for so long only to see my hard-earned skills deteriorate as I sit down in a middle of a classroom all day."

Neji shook his head while smiling indulgently as I began to wash my face, "Ah Hikaru-sama, now that there is where you are wrong. While you are correct that the level of training in the academy is not up to our standard, there is something they can teach us that we cannot learn anywhere else."

"And pray tell, what may that be?" I asked before I started brushing my teeth.

"Bonds." Neji answered. "Comrades, friends, people we can trust our backs and lives to. These are things we can never discover if we seclude ourselves in these walls. That is something you can only experience if you leave this place, and I believe that is precisely what Hiashi-sama intends for you to learn at the Academy."

"I doubt that's what my father intends for me to learn. That man is too practical to waste time on something like that." I muttered around my toothbrush before spitting out the toothpaste and quickly began rinsing my mouth clean. Really, Hiashi sending me to the Academy to learn about the 'power of friendship', as if he'd do anything so asinine.

When I was done rinsing my mouth I turned an assessing eye on my cousin. "You know at times like this I find it hard to believe you're just seven Neji. The way you talk and act is far too mature for your age."

"I could say the same thing about you Hikaru-sama." He was quick to point out.

That's because I'm forty-something year old man trapped in a six year old's body, what's your excuse?

Prodigy or nor, Neji spoke with a maturity that no seven year old should have. From the words he used to the topic he discussed, they should have been far above his level of comprehension at his current age. He actually sounded sophisticated at times. _Sophisticated_! I didn't even know seven year olds can pronounce the word let alone sound it but Neji was living proof.

Had he been the only child like this I would have simply chalked it up to him being a genius and left it at that but it wasn't only him. Almost every child in the compound was like this. While not as advanced as Neji was, they all sounded far older than they should have and demonstrated more intelligence than I would have ever expected from children their age.

The only possible explanation that I could think of was _Chakra_. Having that much Chakra coursing through their bodies, and with it their brains, since birth must have altered how their minds functioned or matured in some way.

The rattling sound of my bedroom door sliding open broke my train of thought. I turned to find Neji bowing slightly towards the door, smiling indulgently at my morning visitor. "Good morning, Ojou-sama."

"Onii-sama?" A small voice called out, ignoring Neji completely, before it was quickly followed by the pitter-patter of tiny feet crossing the wooden floor.

I walked out of the bathroom to greet my tiny guest, just in time to witness her tripping over the hem of her Kimono and falling face-first onto the ground. We watched as the little two year old skidded a full foot on the smooth hardwood floor before slowing to a halt.

For a long moment no one in the room moved, as me and Neji stared at the unmoving form of the little girl as she lay on the floor. Thankfully before anyone of us thought about panicking she began to stir.

Slowly the little girl placed both of her hands underneath her and pushed herself up to her knees, her arms shaking slightly from the effort, before raising her head up towards us, revealing an adorable little face with a red mark on her forehead.

Tear-filled eyes looked up at us, threatening to spill any minute, yet despite that she did not cry, even as her chin wobbled in her effort to hold her tears in check she refused to cry.

Neji was about to rush to the girl's aid but I beat him to it. Swiftly making my way to her, I knelt down and I slid my hands under her shoulders before standing. I observed the little girl as I lifted her up, holding her before me at arm's length.

Shoulder length brown hair, just a shade too bright to be called black, framed an oval face. Her skin was a rich healthy hue, the kind born from playing under the sun, and she was clothed in a silk kimono of a blue and white design while her Hyuuga pale eyes peered at me with bewilderment. She cocked her heard to side at me like a dog, her pain forgotten in her confusion.

"Neji?" My voice was deadly serious as I turned to look at my cousin, still holding the girl at arm's length before me.

"Yes, Hikaru-sama?" The amusement was painfully clear in his voice, but I pretended not to notice.

"With this, there can be no more doubt," I turned back to the tiny girl in my hands, before cuddling to my chest and rubbed my cheeks against hers. I all but squealed out the rest of my words, "My little sister is the most adorable thing ever!"

"If you say so Hikaru-sama." Neji, the disbeliever that he was, sounded as if he were only humouring me. Blasphemy!

Little Hanabi giggled in delight as she threw her arms around my neck. "Onii-sama, stop that! It tickles." She laughed out but didn't even try to push me away as she nuzzled in the crook of my neck.

This makes it official, girls are so much better than boys. I knew, just knew I should have had daughters instead of sons, they are simply so much better. That does it, if I ever have children again then I only wanted girls just like Hanabi.

"I'm sorry to disturb you two," Neji, not sounding the least bit sorry but rather amused, butted into our brother-sister time, "but it's time to leave. If we delay any longer you're going to be late for your first day at the Academy."

That was actually enough to drag me away from playing around with Hanabi as a thought occurred to me. "No, we wouldn't want to be late, now would we?" I felt my lips curve into an all so wicked smile. "Not when I have some long overdue business to attend to."

Neji, as perhaps the closest thing I had to a friend and confident, well other than Kou my bodyguard, instantly understood what I meant and paled. With a strained smile he pleaded with me, "Please try not to punch anyone Hikaru-sama. At least not someone too important. I don't want to you to start a Clan feud at your very day."

Hanabi, seeing the smile I was sporting decided to mimic me. The smile she made was as every bit as wicked as mine, proof that I had raised her well. We both turned as one to Neji. "Neji, Neji," I cooed at the boy while he sighed with resignation and muttered 'at least I tried' under his breath, "You know me all too well."

* * *

The boy was sent tumbling backwards, falling to the ground and landing on his back-side. His eyes were wide with shock and confusion, still unable to process what had just happened.

He hesitantly raised a hand to touch his nose, gently prodding it with his fingers only to flinch, quickly pulling it away. Sasuke's eyes widened when he caught sight of the streaks of red staining the tips of his fingers and he stared in disbelief at his own blood, before finally looking back up at me from where I loomed over him.

I unclenched my fist, ignoring the slightly tender but oh so satisfying stinging on my knuckles, and pointed straight at the downed Uchiha.

"That, that you douche," I savoured every word as they spilled from my lips, I had waited years for this moment and was going to relish every second of it, "is for every single one of your episodes that I had to sit through where you whined and wailed about like a little bitch about how bad your life was, even as you slaughtered and betrayed countless of innocent people as you did so. Seriously! You moan about your dead family while you were trying to commit bloody genocide and yet still expected us to feel sorry for you? That is for acting like the biggest dumb-ass I have ever had the displeasure of knowing when you betrayed your brother's sacrifice, you fucking disgrace to your clan."

"…Huh?" Was Sasuke's eloquent reply.

The train of events was too much for his mind, and he just blankly stared up at me with his mouth hanging open as if he was watching a mad man. But I didn't care, I was on a roll here, and I wasn't going stop until I got everything off my chest.

"And that is for every single god damn Narutotard fan-boy that were stupid enough to worship your selfish prick of an ass, and for every delusional teenage boy who was inspired by your actions to buy a pair of Sharingan contact lenses so they could huddle in some dark corner of their room and pretend to be all emo and dark like some brooding Uchiha for some god forsaken reason. That's right, you somehow managed to inspire teenagers to become even more annoying, something that I never even knew was possible. And _that_, is why I just bashed your face in, you prick."

I cupped an ear and pretended to listen to something, "You hear that?" I asked, "That is the sound of millions of people across the multi-verse cheering me on for whooping your sorry ass and dear god did it feel fantastic!"

By the time I was done with my tangent I found myself panting, shoulders rising and falling as if I had ran a marathon. The sound of murmuring coming from all around me pierced through my mental haze and I finally became aware of all the people watching us.

We were standing within the Academy grounds, in the large courtyard located in front of the main building. The courtyard was filled with several of my fellow freshmen, numbering over three hundred in all, who were mingling with one another in an attempt to make new friends or were chatting with old ones, though every one of them that stood nearby had stopped to stare.

It had only been a couple of minutes ago when Kou, my bodyguard, had dropped Neji and me off at the Academy. I had barely taken a single step onto the Academy's ground when my eyes locked on to a familiar haircut and, without hesitation, I charged straight ahead and ploughed a fist into Sasuke face.

Yeah, I was probably going to get into a lot of trouble for that but the sheer satisfaction I felt made it worth it, even if I did started a feud. Which was unlikely considering I was still a kid, but I certainly didn't help make things any better between our clans.

Not that it matters. If things followed the original timeline then the Uchiha would get wiped up soon, so there was no point in playing nice with them.

Ignoring Sasuke for a moment, who still kept staring up at me as if I was a raging lunatic, I turned to the gates and spotted Kou from where he stood along with the other parents, with Neji still by his side.

Kou lifted his hand away from his face, a red palm print marking his cheek from how hard he had facepalmed, before he spared a quick and wistful glance at the flask on his belt. I was told that he had only begun drinking after he was assigned to me, and now refused to go anywhere without taking a flask of the stuff along.

Neji just let out a sigh and shook his head. Yeah, out of everyone I knew Neji has always been the least fazed by my antics. I guess getting a lot of first-hand experience over the years would do that to you.

I then looked past them towards the rest of the parents, or should I say one particular pair of parents. Fugaku, the patriarch of the Uchiha, and with his normally soft natured wife were both levelling their best glares at me. But for all of their efforts to turn me to ash with their eyes alone, neither one of them held a candle to look of smouldering rage that the teenage boy who stood beside them was giving me.

And _oh my God it was Itachi!_

The young and newly minted ANBU Captain was standing there along with his parents, no doubt taking time from work to see his brother off at his first day at the Academy. He was dressed up in his usual grey pants and black shirt, his clan symbol no doubted sewed on its back, and, if the look that he was sending my way was anything to go by, he was furious.

Over the years I had gotten into my share of fights. Most of them were not even my fault. Children tend to react badly when someone much younger surpasses them, and many tried to take their frustration out on me by attempting to 'teach me my place'. Though I admit that the responsibility for some fights rested solely on me, usually when I got bored and did something exceedingly stupid.

And after a time I had begun to notice a kind of unwritten rule that the adults all seemed to follow when it came to dealing with children fighting, at least those training to be Ninjas. Leave the children be and let them sort it out among themselves.

A child's quarrel was just that, children quarrelling, it happens all the time and there was no need to make a bigger deal out of it than what it was. So long as it doesn't get out of hand and no one gets seriously hurt, we were expected to deal with it ourselves, with no direct interference or help from adults until after the fight was over.

I suppose when training children to become killers, fights breaking out were unavoidable. At times I had even wondered if they actually encouraged fights to break out, perhaps even seeing it as a type of training.

So the elder two Uchiha hesitated, unsure if they should intervene in what should have rightfully been their youngest son's fight. What was most likely stopping them from acting was their concern over both their Clan and their son's reputation.

To protect Sasuke from me was tantamount to publicly admitting that he needed protection from me, the he was inferior to the Hyuuga child. And I'm pretty sure both of our clans' would rather lick the dirt off a beggar's feet than admit that they were ever inferior in any way to the other.

However the youngest of the three did not share their hesitation.

Whether it was his age that gave him some leeway or, more likely, that he simply didn't give a damn about reputation when it came to protecting his brother, he swiftly made his way to me, and before I knew it Uchiha Itachi was standing before me, placing himself between his brother and me. All the while he stared down at me with those crimson orbs of his as they lazily spun in their sockets.

Itachi opened his mouth, probably to reprimand me or even to warn me off about ever hitting his brother again, but before he could get so much as a word in, I acted.

I dropped down onto both of my knees before him and held my arms wide open "My lord!" I yelled out with honest joy. "I cannot begin to tell you how happy and honoured I am to finally meet you. I am your biggest fan!"

The Sharingan, one of the most powerful ocular bloodlines in existence, grants it's user a clarity of perception that allows you to notice even the most minute of details, among many other of its unique abilities.

But there was no such thing as perfect technique. Every move, every jutsu, no matter how sublime, had a flaw that could be exploited. And one of the Sharingan's flaw was it always showed the truth. Those eyes did not lie, with their ability to see through any deception, genjutsu or otherwise, they could not be lied to, so everything it showed you was the truth, no matter how much you wished it wasn't.

Itachi's skill with the Sharingan was legendary, his mastery over the eyes granted him the ability to spot any lie, even one told by the most talented and well-trained of liars. So simply by looking at me he knew, beyond any doubt that in spite of how far-fetched I was behaving, I was being completely serious with him. The look of worship I was giving him was not an act, but rather the genuine article.

I have to tell you, the look of pure shock on his usually stoic face was priceless.

His loss of composure only lasted for a brief second before he quickly regained control of himself and his expression returned back to normal. "What are you doing?"

"What am I doing?" I parroted, cocking my head to the side before glancing down at myself. I smacked myself on my forehead when I understood. "Oh, you're right! What am I thinking?"

I quickly rose up to my feet and, while he tried to hide it, I could clearly see the relief on his face. For Itachi, the Uchiha Heir, having me, the Hyuuga Heir, kneel down before him, in public no less, must have been surreal. This was probably as far out from his comfort zone he could get and his relief that the situation was finally approaching something normal again was almost palatable.

That was at least until I spun in place to face the opposite direction before dropping to my knees again.

"…What are you doing?" he repeated again, no longer even trying to hide his bewilderment. Though I could no longer see him I had no doubt that his mask slipped off again.

"I'm unworthy to even look in your general direction my lord." I explained and lower my head in respect.

Now you must understand while part of the reason I'm behaving like this was because I genuinely enjoyed messing with people, a hobby I began to develop in an effort to fight off the boredom that came in a world without an internet connection, but mostly I did this because_ Holy Shit_ this was mother fucking Itachi damn it! _The Uchiha Itachi! _Who was without the doubt the greatest freaking ninja since 'sit your ass back down I'll deal with you later Madara' Hashirama himself.

And Hyuuga-Uchiha Clan rivalry or not, I knew that when in the presence of greatness, we peons must bow!

From the edge of my eyes I caught sight of Kou, who just stared at me wide-eyed before finally reaching for his flask and taking a long swallow from it. Poor bastard was going to have a hell of a time explaining this to Hiashi. A shell-shocked Neji just stood beside him, his face turning to a shade of white so pale it looked like snow.

Now that I think it about, lot of people were looking at me weirdly at the moment. What? Is there something wrong with me bowing before a living god? Infidels, the lot of them.

No wait, I was wrong. Not everyone was staring at me.

Off to one side, a large group of anxious parents were huddled together. They were trying to catch sight of something, some of them standing on their toes to peer over the heads of the crowd. Worried mothers muttered silent prayers while casting anxious glances ahead, not relaxing even as their husbands placed comforting arms around them, though they too could not hid the fear in their eyes.

Even from here, I could almost taste their terror.

What were they doing?

Tracing their line of sight, I tried to figure out what it was they were looking at. It was then that I caught sight of it.

_It shimmered in the air like threads of sunlight._

It was there just for a second, a flash of yellow hair, and then it was gone, hidden behind the thick milling crowds of the students.

Something in me turned cold as I caught sight of it, as if a bucket of water was thrown over my head, and suddenly the world wasn't funny anymore. It was but a single glimpse, but everything change because of it.

_Don't try to live so wise._

That haunting melody, drifting in and out of my thoughts, echoing like a half forgotten memory.

_Ah_, I remember now.

"Excuse me." I rose to my feet and walked in the direction of where I last caught sight of it. Voices called out from behind me but I couldn't bring myself to care enough to listen.

My footsteps were slow and unhurried as I made my way through the crowds, easily weaving between the milling bodies. And the closer I grew, the more glimpses I would catch. A flash of orange clothing, whisker marked cheeks, a smile stretched so wide it looked like it hurt. Never more for a moment, nothing more than a glimpse before I lost sight of it, hidden from my view once again.

Soon the words reached my ears.

_Go away - Mum told me to keep away – What are you doing here, nobody wants you here – Don't get closer, you'll get eaten – No I don't want to be your friend._

But two words was repeated over and over again

…_Monster_

…_Kyuubi_

That's right, the Kyuubi was never kept secret in this world was it?

And at last I was past the densest part of the crowd and I could finally see what was happening.

A line of children formed a semi-circle near one edge of the courtyard, all of them facing in. And in the middle of the children, there was one who stood alone.

That was the very first time that I caught sight of him.

His hair was a little bit longer than he would wear it later in life but it was still in that unmistakable mess yellow of spikes. Ocean-Blue eyes peered out of a whiskered face and a blue shirt peaked out beneath his orange jacket.

Through it all, he just smiled.

Taunts, jeers, insults, they fell on him like the rain and he met them all with a smile. Clowning around as if the words didn't hurt, as if their actions didn't pain him.

_Don't dry with fakes or fears,_

When I watched that scene, I felt over come by…

_Irritation._

Irritating, it was so fucking irritating. What the hell did you think you were doing?

Instantly the cold that had taken hold of me disappeared, replaced by a fire, burning away all traces of the chill left behind.

My footsteps grew faster, steadily increasing until I all but sprinted towards them

_What the Hell! Seriously, What the bloody Hell!_

My hand clenched into a fist as I neared the ring of children.

One of the kids, a brown haired boy of six, must have heard me coming because he turned around, his eyes widening in shock when he saw me charging straight at him. When I was but a pace away I cocked my arm back, putting all my weight behind the punch. The boy, too late to do anything, stumbled back in fear-

_Grit your teeth brat!_

-Only to blink in surprise as I ran straight past him.

Naruto barely had enough time to catch sight of me before my fist ploughed into his face. The blow was so strong that it knocked him straight off his feet, sending him tumbling onto the ground.

Unlike with Sasuke I felt no satisfaction in punching him, no joy, just a sense of frustration so strong that bordered on rage. As I glared down at his fallen form I was so overwhelmed with emotion that I was panting and barely held myself back from hitting him again.

"What are you doing? What the hell do you think you're doing?!" I screamed out at Naruto from where he lay on the ground, his confusion was so evident on his face that it might as well have been painted on.

"Wha-huh?" He stammered out as he tried to push himself back up, but I didn't let him. When it looked like he was about to get to his feet I leapt, barreling into his to waist, knocking him back onto the ground and quickly straddling his waist.

Gripping the front of his shirt I dragged his face up to my own, and glared down into his confused eyes. "Why are you smiling? Why the hell are you even laughing? You're not supposed to do that!" Pulling my head back, I quickly brought it back down.

My forehead smashed painfully onto his, it hurt so much that I saw stars and had to grit my teeth to stop myself from yelling out. Naruto however did not try to restrain himself and let out a scream of pain.

"Yes, that's how you're supposed to react." I smiled down at the teary eyed boy, ignoring the way my blood dripped off of my forehead and fall down onto his cheeks. When I finally saw him looking back up at me and was certain that I had his attention, I continued speaking. "It hurts doesn't it, getting hit that is? When someone hits you it hurts, it's supposed to hurt. It's so painful that you want to break out into tears and cry. That's what you're supposed to do when you're in pain kid. You're not supposed to smile damn it!"

I raised my fist and was about to bring it smashing down onto his face again when I felt something shift beneath me. The next thing I knew the entire world was flipped upside down as I was sent flying through the air, only to feel pain erupt from my back an instant later as I came crashing back down to the ground so hard that it knocked the air out of my lungs.

Stunned for a few seconds as my body fought for air, I laid on my back and took a couple of deep breaths before flipping myself over and pushing myself onto my feet, though I need to keep my hands on my knees to steady myself. When I finally bothered to look up I quickly discovered that Naruto too has risen back onto his feet.

And he was no longer smiling.

He looked angry.

I felt the edge of my lip quirk up in satisfaction. "That's better, much better. That's how you're supposed to look when you're fighting, not that pasted on smile that you keep wearing."

"What do you know!" Naruto yelled out and pointed straight at me. "What do you know about me? About anything?"

"You're right kid, I'd don't know you. And truth be told I don't give enough of a damn to bother finding out." Standing up to my full height I took a step towards the boy.

"But what I do know is that you're not supposed to laugh when you're in pain. That's something that every snot nosed-brat could tell you. It's ok to be angry – you're just a kid aren't you? You're supposed to be stupid, to wail and cry over every god damn little thing like the brat that you are. So why the hell won't you just act your bloody age instead of trying to be so wise and smile away your pain. Because if keep doing that-"

_'Cause you will hate yourself in the end._

"-all you'll be doing is hurting yourself in the end." Before he could as much as blink, I closed the distance between us and socked him in the face. Then again in his side. I didn't use the Gentle Fist, no chakra or any of my training in this fight, I just wailed my blows at him. "So get angry. Yell, cry, fight back, do something! Don't just sit there and smile."

I didn't' even realize he had begun fighting back until I found myself folding over in two as a fist buried itself into my belly. The force behind the punch was insane. In all of my training I had never felt anything like it from someone my age. Not even close. No child, Shinobi or not, should have that much power.

I see, so this was a _Jinchuuriki_.

"I'm the Kyuubi!" He screamed out as he threw another punch which I weaved around. For all of the force behind the blow, the kid telegraphed his punches so badly that I had no trouble dodging them now that I knew they were coming.

"So the fuck what!?" Ducking under a second blow I stepped closer to his body and punched him again in his side, only now realizing how little damage I was actually doing. "Demon-container or not, you're still just a snot-nosed brat. What's the hell is wrong with crying when you're sad? Laughing only when you're happy?"

"Because then I'll never laugh at all." He yelled out in anger as he threw yet another punch. "I'll never smile. If I'm only supposed to laugh when I'm happy, then…then…" His blows began to slow until they halted to a stop. When I looked at his face to see figure out why I found myself looking at an expression so fragile that it looked like it would shatter like glass. He sniffled and looked down at his feet and whispered so quietly that I barely heard him. "…Then I'll do nothing but cry all the time."

"And what is wrong with that?" I lowered my guard, suddenly feeling inexplicably exhausted. "If you don't cry, then how is anyone supposed to know that you're in pain?"

"NO ONE CARES!" I was knocked off my feet as Naruto rammed himself into my stomach. We were both knocked onto the floor before he straddled my waist. In a complete reversal of our earlier position, he reached out and grabbed my shirt before dragging my face up to his. Ocean-blue eyes that were wet with unshed tears stared resolutely into mine. "I'm not like you. I don't have a mum or a dad. I don't even have a family."

With one hand still gripping my shirt, he raised the other into the air and brought it down onto my face. "It doesn't matter if I cry or not because no one will care, there is no one that will even notice. I'm sick of crying and crying when nothing changes. If there is no one there to wipe away the tears then what's the point?"

"So is that it? They hurt you and you take it? Why don't you fight back? When someone hurts you, just hurt them back harder. That's how you make them stop and go away."

"But that's just it; I don't want to hurt anyone. I just don't want to be left alone anymore."

I laughed up at him after another blow to my face, a familiar warmth spilling from my bloodied nose and down the side of my cheek. "Well, I hate to break it you kid. But if you don't want to hurt anybody you're doing a terrible job at it."

"That's because you keep pissing me off so much." He dragged me up again before slamming me back onto the ground. "If it's some rich jerk like that you, then I don't think I'll really mind bashing your face in."

For all the bluster of his words, his face told a different story. Though he tried to scowl in rage, all I could see was a crying child. Tears now fell freely down his face even as he rained more blows down at me, though they were so weak now that I barely felt them.

I could now see it clearly on his face, a pain so deep and old that it hurt just looking at it.

Yes, that's it. This is what I wanted to see.

Kids aren't supposed to hide their pain, you're supposed to cry when you're sad. Laugh at adversity, smile during hard times? Leave hard stuff like that for old geezers like me, they're not things a child should be doing. Not one as young as you. You shouldn't be pretending to be so old Naruto.

Did you know Naruto, there was a time I admired you?

It's true. When I was a child I honestly looked up to you. From the bottom of my heart I adored you. I wanted you to succeed, to show the world that they were wrong about you. Back then when I kept watching you try so hard, no matter how hard things got, no matter how painful it was to just simply keep on living, you never gave up and still kept on fighting.

How could I not cheer for you?

So what happened to you?

The fool that you kept showing to the world was once but a mask, make believe, something you wore to keep living because it was too painful to carry on otherwise. But when did the mask stop being just a mask. When did the mask become real?

I remember, that was why I hated you so much. When the mask became the real you, I wanted to know, where did the person I admire go? Why was there nothing but a shallow fool in his place instead?

There was something I always wanted to say to you – you weren't wrong.

You weren't the bad one, so why the hell are you punishing yourself? Why do you have to become the fool to please them? Those that hurt you? You weren't wrong so why do you have to be the one to suffer.

If you wanted to forgive those who had hurt you, then that was fine, do so, but why did you have to pretend that they never did anything wrong? They hurt you, wronged you, and they never once apologized, they never regretted it, yet you became the fool that you once just pretended to be in order to forgive them.

_Don't try to live so wise.  
Don't cry 'cause you're so right.  
Don't dry with fakes or fears,  
'Cause you will hate yourself in the end_

Why do you keep trying to pretend to be so wise? When did you become such a shallow person? When did you become the mask you wore?

When the mask became you, I felt as if you took away my hero. I felt as if you killed him.

I never forgave you for that.

That is why I'm so happy right now.

This pain, this rage, everything that you were showing me right now, it wasn't a mask. This was the _real_ you.

This was _Uzumaki Naruto_.

It's been a while hasn't it?

Just as I thought Naruto, you are-

"-Interesting." I smiled through blooded lips, "It appears I was right about you Uzumaki Naruto all those years ago. You really are interesting."

I blocked his next punch, snatching his wrist out of the air as it streaked towards my face. "Hey, Naruto." I looked up at him from where he still straddled me. "I have an offer for you."

He tried scowling down at me through his tears, his weariness and distrust clear.

I ignored his reaction, and gave him a genuine smile, ignoring the sting as my lips split open. "Let's be friends."

"…Huh?"

* * *

"So," Setting my backpack down, I turned around to face my gathered family and _geez_ did a lot of them turn up. I placed my hand on Naruto's shoulder, "I'll be spending the next couple of days at this guy's place."

Naruto, who had been gawking around at the Hyuuga estate like some kind of country bumpkin seeing the city for the first time, which now that I think about it may not be too off the mark, jumped at my touch. He stopped looking around and finally paid attention to what was happening around him, cheeks quickly coloring when he noticed the eyes of my entire clan on us.

And I wasn't exaggerating by much either. It felt as if every Hyuuga on the entire estate has come to see us off. We were standing before the main gates, in what I would have ordinary called the front yard to the compound, if it wasn't for the fact that it was bigger than most soccer fields.

Standing on the stairway leading up to the main building was a blank-faced Hiashi, who gazed impassively down at me with his hands tucked into the sleeves of his kimono. Hizashi was standing to his left and just a step behind, while my grandfather stood to his right. Surrounding them on either side were the Clan Elders, every single last one of them, all of whom were wearing faces of grim disapproval.

Several other Clan members were there as well, most of whom probably turned up to watch the free show more than anything. All of them were either behind the Elders or far off to the side, none of them stupid or brave enough to stand between us. A handful of my younger cousins, those too short to see through the crowd and have yet to master the Byakugan well enough to watch from a distance, have climbed up to the second floor of the compound and opened up the windows to peer down at us.

I actually spotted my little sister Hanabi, up by one of the windows, carried in our mother's arm. She was leaning forward as far as she could go, enthusiastically waving goodbye with both of her hands, and I could faintly hear calls of _itrerashhai _coming from her_._

Let me tell you, for a stoic bunch, the Hyuuga simply loved gossip, especially the non-ninjas among them. And a scandal like this one must have been too much for them to resist, so it came as no surprise to see so many of my relative turning up. There must have been a hundred of them out here, and that was just what I could see. No telling how many were sneaking a peek from a far with the Byakugan.

Kou was standing a little bit off to the left, right next to the group of Elders, where he was downing his flash of whisky as if it was water. A couple of the less self-disciplined Elders kept shooting him envious looks rather than ones of disapproval like they normally would have.

Well, after he gave his report of what happened today, me punching the son of the Uchiha clan head, then bowing down in public before his other son, the Uchiha Heir, before going to immediately start a fight with the village Jinchuuriki, only to befriend said Jinchuuriki, bring him home like a lost puppy and request to sleep over at the his place.

Well, that was alone was enough to tempt any man to drink. That the Clan Head had immediately approved my request without so much as a complaint probably was the final nail on the coffin for them.

I just realized….this was only my first day at the Academy. These poor bastards are going to have to put up with another six years of this shit.

"Hikaru." My eyes turned back to my father, who was coolly looking down at me from his place up the stairs. Hiashi as he usually did when in public, showed nothing of what he was feeling, hiding his thoughts behind an expressionless face. "Do you really intend to go through with this?"

His tone was neutral, hinting at neither approval nor disapproval. Normally I would have _some_ idea of what he was thinking about, reincarnated or not I was still this man's son after all, and I had seen sides of him that he would have never revealed to anyone else. Yet for the life of me I had no idea what he was thinking.

Hiashi has been acting strangely this whole time. He had always been a logical person, practical and conservative in his approach, the type to only rock the boat when the benefits greatly outweighed the risk. Something that I had always understood and approved about him. But when I decided to ditch the first day of the Academy and barged into his office dragging a confused Naruto in tow, he didn't raise so much as a single word of complaint.

Even when I told that I wanted to crash at Naruto's for the next couple of days he said nothing, just calmly watching me as I spoke, the only sign of his surprise was the slight quirking of an eyebrow. He simply called a clan meeting with the Elders, had me repeat my request after Kou had given his report, before quickly granting me his approval.

I had come expecting a yelling war to get what I wanted, but he didn't raise so much as a single complaint. He even went as far as siding with me when the Elders had naturally protested my request, shutting down all of their objections.

What was Hiashi thinking, and when had he changed so much?

"You do understand what this means?" He turned his calm eyes on Naruto before setting them back onto me, "Your actions will have repercussions, many that I will not be able to protect you from. Knowing this, will you still continue?"

"Of course." I answered resolutely, "In my entire life, had I ever regretted my decision once I made up my mind on something?"

"No," There was something in his voice, a flicker of emotion that I could not quite decipher. "No, you haven't." Hiashi searched my face, looking for something, before slowly nodding. "Very well, you have my blessing. You may leave, but you are to return in two days at the latest. And I expect you to attend the Academy from now own, any more unapproved absences will no longer be tolerated. Understood?"

One of the Elders, unable to restrain himself any longer, had step forward to voice his disapproval, "Hiashi-sama you can't seriously be planning to allow-" only to immediately stop when Hiashi raised a hand.

"Now, go Hikaru." Hiashi commanded. "Leave before I end up changing my mind."

I didn't need to be told twice. Quickly lifting my backpack and throwing it over my shoulder, I grabbed a confused looking Naruto by the scuff of his jacket, who yelped in indignation at my manhandling him, and began dragging him away.

Yet even as I quickly made my way to the gate, I couldn't shake off the feeling that I had missed something important in our conversation. But no matter how hard I tried I couldn't figure it out and I had no intention of staying long enough to find out, not when there was the real chance of Hiashi regaining his senses and changing his mind.

The last thing I heard as I walked out of the gate was little Hanabi yelling out an adorable '_Bye-bye_'.

* * *

The courtyard was silent as everyone watched the young Heir walk out of the compound, dragging the loudly protesting Jinchuriki behind him. No one was willing to speak and break the silence for the next several minutes, not until both boys were well and truly out of sight and hearing.

Hizashi was the first to speak.

Stepping forward he turned to his face older brother. "Is this truly wise Hiashi-sama? To let Hikaru-sama spend so much time alone with the Kyuubi child?

"This time I'm in full agreement with your brother Hiashi." The Elder that stood immediately to Hiashi's right spoke up. Like most of the Elders he was an aged man, well past his prime, but that did not mean he was frail by any means. Though his face was wrinkled and his faded brown hair was thinning, it was clear that the body beneath his robes was still solid and strong. He carried himself with a grace that belied his age, his footsteps light and silent.

As their father, Takehiko bore a great resemblance to both of his twin sons, something that would not doubt only continue to grow as his children aged.

Now turning to his eldest, he bestowed on him a disappointed frown. "I fear you may end up regretting this decision Hiashi. Hikaru is no ordinary boy, in the entirety of our Clan's history, there had never been one that had shown as much promise and raw potential as he does. Not even you could compare when you were a child. For you to risk him in such an endeavor," Takehiko slowly shook his head in clear disapproval, "What could have possessed you to do such a thing?"

The former Clan Head sighed, "I'm sorry my son, but I cannot support you in this. I had held my tongue, as you are now the Clan Head, but I must implore you to give us a reason for your decision. For I fear that neither I nor the others can restrain ourselves from interfering. The Clan cannot afford to risk a genius of Hikaru's caliber, not over something like this."

If their words had any effect on him, Hiashi did not show it. He simply continued to steadily stare straight ahead, looking at the direction his son had departed, before finally he released a breath.

"A genius…huh?" Hiashi's eyes seemed to lose their focus, his voice turning oddly melancholic. "…Yes, perhaps there is no better word to describe my son."

Hiashi began to descend the stairs, his father and brother quickly tailing after him, leaving the rest of the Clan along with any prying ears behind them. When he reached the bottom, Hiashi continued walking in the same steady pace towards the compound gates.

"I used to pray to the Gods to grant me a strong child. Before Hikaru's birth, when my wife was still pregnant, I would pray every day." His eyes turned forlorn before Hiashi raised his gaze up to the sky as they walked. "I had wished for a strong and powerful Heir. Only now that I had my wish granted, do I realize that perhaps I should have wished for a kind one instead."

"Hiashi?" Takehiko looked puzzled by his successor's words.

"My son," Hiashi paused in his steps to turn and face Takehiko, "he scares me father. I love him but I'm frightened of my own son."

"Hiashi," Takehiko turned his confused eyes to Hizashi, who shrugged in return, just as perplexed as he was. "What are you talking about?"

"So you haven't noticed. I should not be surprised I suppose, he hides it well." Hiashi resumed his trek towards the open gates. "Hikaru, he is simply too talented, too skilled. Abnormally so. He learns so fast and understands so much, far too much to be normal. Not even when Hatake Kakashi was a child did he learn as fast as Hikaru does."

"And what's wrong with that?" Takehiko appeared perplexed by what Hiashi was saying. "You make it sound as if my grandson's progress is a bad thing. If anything you should be proud of yourself for raising such a talented son."

"Ah, but that's the thing father, I never taught him anything. Not a single thing." Hiashi flashed his father a ghost of a smile, "I played no hand in Hikaru's education, he has always taught himself everything he needed to know. Reading, writing, etiquette. Even the Byakugan, something that by all rights he should have needed help to awaken, he did it entirely on his own."

"As expect of my grandson," In contrast to Hiashi's grim mood, Takehiko nodded proudly at his grandson's accomplishments. "He truly is a genius. I look forward to see how he will mature. With an Heir like him, our Clan's future will surely be a bright one."

"A genius?... It would be good if that were the case."

Takehiko turned an angry eye at his son, finally reaching the limit of his patience. "Hiashi, what are you rattling on about? What is wrong with Hikaru exceeding his peers?"

"Prodigies are all like that." Hizashi, sensing a potential fight brewing between his father and brother, decided to step in. "What others need to be taught they figure out on their own. I have seen Neji do same; he learns skills and technique simply by watching other train. Even I'm astounded by what he can do at time."

Hizashi gave his elder sibling a concerned look, "Brother, forgive me if I'm stepping out of bounds, but are you sure you're not worrying yourself over problems that are simply not there to begin with?"

"If only that were the case," Hiashi sighed and gave his head a slow shake, "but no, I fear that this is something more than my imagination."

He halted his steps as they finally reached the entrance to the gate, his father and brother standing on either side of him. They all stopped talking for a moment to take in the sight of the village of Konoha sprawling before them.

"Tell me, father, brother, have either of you ever seen Hikaru laugh? I mean really laugh, an open and care-free one like you would expect to hear from any child."

"Of Cou-" Takehiko stopped in mid-reply, a surprised expression on his face as he tried and failed to think of such an occasion.

Hiashi gave his father a rueful smile. "Neither have I." Before looking away, "Perhaps he does in fact laugh but if so, is it not strange that I have never heard my own son laugh? I never realized it until after Hanabi was born and my wife pointed out to me how much she laughed compared to when Hikaru was a baby. It was only then that it became painfully clear to me just how abnormal my son really is."

Hiashi sighed, "It was then that I decided to keep a closer eye on him, and it did not take me long to grasp that there was something gravely wrong with my son. There is a part of him that is so cold, so very unforgiving. I catch glimpses of it from time to time, when he thinks no one is watching, and it is something that I never wish to see in any child, let alone my own.

"The boy had no real friends to speak of. It is not that he is shy or even afraid, he simply does not care. Neji is the only child his age he is willing to talk to, and even then Neji had to follow him around for the better part of a year to make Hikaru open up to him.

He has no wish to make any friends, no interests or hobbies. To him there is only training, and the degree of passion he has for it is almost frightening. The way he keeps pushing himself to the brink of exhaustion time and again without any encouragement, it is as if he is driven by something. Sometimes when I watch my son train I think that there is a hunger burning inside him, driving him to train, and like a fire, it only grows the more he tries to feed."

Hiashi turned to face both his father and brother, "I had only heard about one person acting this way before, another child prodigy. One that was also hailed as an unprecedented genius, who went by the name of Orochimaru."

"HIASHI!" Takehiko yelled out furiously, insulted on behalf of his grandson. "Comparing Hikaru to that poisonous snake Orochimaru, that's taking things too far!" And he was not alone in this opinion, Hizashi quickly jumping in to support him.

"Brother, I have seen how he treats Hanabi. Hikaru adores the girl. You can't tell me you don't see it? And for all of their differences even Neji loves your boy. He himself has told me that he feels that Hikaru is the only one his age that can understand him. He would not feel that way if Hikaru truly did not care for him."

Hiashi nodded in agreement. "Yes, and that is precisely why I still believe that my son is not lost to us, not yet. That he can still bring himself to care about others gives me hope, that something could be done to cure him from whatever aliment plagues his mind and heart."

"That is why you sent him to the Academy." Hizashi breathed as he began putting the pieces together. "In all ways that matter Hikaru is already a Genin, everyone in the Clan knows that. Yet you still commanded him to spend the entire six years in the Academy even over his instructor's objections. You did it to help Hikaru."

"Yes," Hiashi nodded to his brother, "if my son were to carry on as he is, he will break. What Hikaru needs the most right now is not more training or even experience. No, what Hikaru truly needs is to learn to how to be happy, to care. It is such a simple thing, but for all of their intellect it is often the simplest of things that geniuses often fail to comprehend."

"Let me get this straight Hiashi." The look on Takehiko face was one of pure incredulous disbelief, "You sent Hikaru to the Academy…to make _friends?"_

The edge of Hiashi's lips quirked at his father's tone of voice. "While I wouldn't have put it quite like that myself, yes, essentially that is exactly what I did." Hiashi sighed and turned an imploring look on his father.

"You must remember father, that for all of his intelligence Hikaru is only six years old, and as foolish as it makes me sound I believe above everything else what my son needs right now is a friend. I had hoped that by exposing him to a new environment with many children his own age, he may eventually end up making some, and perhaps learn how to behave like a child for once. I must admit, though it was my own plan I had little hope for it actually working, not this quickly at least."

Hiashi shook his head, a wry smile on his face, "That boy has always managed to surprise me. I had only sent him to the Academy this morning, only for him to come barging back in not an hour later, dragging a blond-haired child by the hand behind him. Then before I could get so much as a word in he asked permission to sleep over at his new friend's place.

"If I had any less control over myself I'm not sure if I would have whooped for joy at my son finally finding a friend or bash my head into the wall that he chose to befriend the Jinchuuriki of all things. And while I would rather he had chosen anyone else, that child is still better that than leaving Hikaru as he is."

"There is also the matter of Hikaru-sama's…confrontation with the Uchiha children." Hizashi reminded.

"A minor incident," Hiashi waved his hand as if swatting a fly. "I will naturally reprimand him on his conduct upon his return but the boy is still but a child. No one will take the actions of a six year old seriously. This event will be remembered as nothing more than a child acting out because he was nervous at his first day at school, if it is even remembered at all."

Takehiko examined at his eldest son's face for a moment before sighing. "Very well." He looked into his successor's eyes, "I will support your decision in this, as the Clan Head and his father it is your right to decide how to best raise the boy. But make no mistake Hiashi, this does not mean I agree with your assessment about my grandson, I'm only siding with you on this because I believe it would be beneficial for Hikaru to make friends among his peers."

"Thank you Father." Hiashi nodded to the man. "And for what it's worth, I hope I'm wrong about Hikaru too." Now that the more sensitive parts of the conversation was over, Hiashi began leading them back into the compounds.

"The Hokage is going to want an explanation for all of this. You know how protective he is when it comes to the Jinchuuriki. He no doubts believes that we had ordered Hikaru-sama to befriend the child." Hizashi commented.

Hiashi nodded with a sigh, "I know, I'll go talk with-"

"No Hiashi, I'll be the one to talk to him." Takehiko cut his son off. "That old monkey owes me more than a few favors from over the years, and I believe the time has come to call him in on them. I foresee no trouble getting Sarutobi to agree to the arrangement; I just have to convince him that this would be a good thing for both of the children. No, it is not the Hokage that will be the problem; it's the other Clans that you have to concern yourself about. None of them are going to be happy about us getting close to the Jinchuuriki."

"Yes, that's true. And that is something I'm going to have to deal with myself. This is going to be a long day." As they walked past Kou, Hiashi snatched the flask out of his hand just as he was about to take another sip, before he took a long deep swallow from it himself. "Tell me Father, when we were children, did we ever cause you so much trouble that we drove you to drink?"

Takehiko let loose an uncharacteristic belly shaking laugh, "Boys, drop by my room tonight and I'll show the hidden stash that I started building when you two learned how to crawl."

* * *

Some things are always the same wherever you go. Whether in this universe or next, show me a city and I'll show you a bunch of people all packed closer together than sardines. And while Konoha was certainly called a village, in almost every way that mattered it was a city.

The streets were crammed with bodies, filled with all different kinds of people. Some were clerks rushing to work, others were the early morning shoppers off to the markets in search of a good deal and there was even the occasional Ninja mixed in with the crowd, either patrolling the street or were simply out for a stroll. They crowded the street, so closely packed in together that all you had to do was swing your arm out and odds are you'd smack someone in the face.

Well, except for the area directly around us, which was conspicuously empty of people.

By all rights we should have had a hell of a time navigating through the crowds; one of the many disadvantages of being six years old again. Do you have any idea how hard it is to push through a group of fully grown adults when you were only three and a half feet tall? It was like walking through a herd of elephants, one mistake and you'd get stepped on.

Today however I did not face that problem, the crowd parted before us, like the Red Sea before Moses, leaving a bubble of space around us. While I had seen this happen quite often whenever my father would take me with him in a trip through the village, his status along with his intimidating appearance assured that, but he wasn't with me this time.

Naruto was.

There was no hatred in their eyes. No anger or loathing, not even a hint of disgust could be found anywhere in their stares.

There was just fear.

It radiated off them like heat from a fire, terror so strong that I saw more than a few people trembled as we pass them by. I could feel their wide anxious eyes on our back, cautiously following us until we were out of their sight.

The Kyuubi was never kept a secret in this world.

Sarutobi, as the recently reinstated Hokage, had chosen a completely different approach to his counterpart. Instead of trying to keep the population of Konoha blind and ignorant about Naruto's status as Jinchuuriki, he tried to educate them instead.

No surprise that someone who was dubbed 'The Professor' by the Ninja community was the type of man who believed in the power of knowledge over ignorance. He educated Konoha not just on the fate of the Kyuubi that day, but on what it meant to be a Jinchuuriki.

He held nothing back. He explained about the sealing process, how the Tailed Beasts can never be killed only stopped for a time, and only by sealing them away in a jinchuuriki – a _human sacrifice_ – and only through that sacrifice they can ever be safe from the Kyuubi's wrath.

Only the knowledge about Naruto's father was never revealed, but other than that nothing was kept secret. His mother, his heritage as the Uzumaki Heir, even that Senju Hashirama's wife, Uzumaki Mito, was the original Jinchuuriki of the Kyuubi was not kept hidden. He had been especially adamant in making sure that everyone understood that the Kyuubi and Naruto were not one and the same, that though they existed in one body they were two complete separate and distinct entities.

He honestly believed that if people understood that Naruto was not the Kyuubi, merely its jailer, they would see him not just for the burden he carried, but as the boy and hero that he was.

Sadly, he was right. Just not in the way he had hoped.

For all of the shocking information that they had just been told, the people of Konoha did not doubt their Hokage. Sarutobi had been their leader since before most of them had even been born, and he was loved and trusted by them like no other. So they believed him when he told them that Naruto was not the Kyuubi.

They had even acknowledged that for his sacrifice of caging the beast, Naruto was to be treated as a Hero and he had been afforded all the rewards his status deserved. That Naruto's apartment building was located in one of the top districts in the entire village was proof of that.

Yet for all of his wealth, he was still treated like a leper.

The villagers understood very well that the Naruto was not that Kyuubi; it only lived in his belly. That only lines of ink drawn on skin were what kept at bay. That the Kyuubi can never be killed only imprisoned, and only for a time. They knew that no seal was infallible, no prison inescapable, that there existed no chains that can hold the Nine-tailed fox at bay forever.

They knew that somewhere within him, the Kyuubi lived, ever patient, waiting for its chance to escape, just like it did with his mother before him.

And when that day comes, it will want revenge.

Konoha remembers all too well the last time the Kyuubi walked the earth, the scars and wounds it left behind were still fresh in their minds. No one wanted to be anywhere near him when that happens.

So yes, they had given him his due, rained on him both praise and glory, and granted him more money than he could spend in a single lifetime, yet they had also bestowed on him more loneliness and solitude than any child deserved.

Like I said before, Heroes were nothing but martyrs. Pain and misery were their only rewards.

And while Sarutobi's plan had failed I could not blame him for his logic. Keeping Naruto's status as a Jinchuuriki a secret was as stupid as it was impractical. Jinchuuriki had existed for centuries, and it was a well-known fact that Uzumaki Kushina was the previous Kyuubi's Jinchuuriki. And while she may not have been loved, neither was she feared.

Well, not for her status as a Jinchuuriki at least. Her temper on the other hand gave people more than their share of reasons to fear her. Had Sarutobi tried to hide Naruto's status, it would have only been a matter of time till the truth came out.

Even in the original timeline he hadn't bothered to keep it a secret, not really. He only tried to prevent people from talking about it so that their prejudice would not spread to the next generation. And we'll all know how well that worked out.

That is why, despite walking through a crowded street, neither one of us ever came within arm's length to anyone else. Though I wanted to, I could not find it in me to hate them for their fear, not when I had seen more than a handful of people grasp at missing limbs or scars of badly healed wounds, no doubt mementos from the Kyuubi.

It is easy to blame them, to call them cowards when the Kyuubi was just part of a children's fairy-tale, nothing but a cartoon. It became much harder when I had placed flowers every year on the graves of my relatives who died by its hands that day.

I spared a quick glance over my shoulder to check up on Naruto, worried how he was taking all of this and…and…and he wasn't even paying attention to them was he?

I thought that it was weird that he was being so quite. He's been practically bipolar ever since our fight at the Academy. At first he would give me looks of suspicion and distrust mixed in with carefully guarded hope.

Then when I dragged him home he wouldn't stand still, he kept jumping from place to place in excitement, talking a mile a minute, only to suddenly stop, turning oddly quiet the next second, looking almost shy and refusing to meet my eyes when I tried talking to him, before switching back over to excitement and repeating the whole thing all over again.

And by the looks of things the blond tyke was back to his quiet phase. He was silently trailing behind me, staring down at where I held his hand in mine, an odd almost disbelieving look on his face.

"Naruto." I called out to him, but he just ignored me and continued to stare down at out clasped hands. "Naruto, can you hear me?" Nope, still nothing. Sighing, I reached out and flicked him on the forehead, "Hey Kid, wake up."

"Ow! What was that for?" Finally snapping out of his little trance, Naruto rubbed his forehead while glaring at me. Though I didn't fail to notice how he still wouldn't let go of my hand. "And why do you keep calling me a kid? You're not any bigger than me."

"That's because I was born with an old soul kid. Now," I stopped at a crossroad, "which way did you say your apartment was again?"

"It's that one right over there. Come on, let's go." And I swear the kid must have been bipolar because his glare was instantly switched out with a bright smile, and the next thing I knew I was all but lifted off my feet as Naruto rushed ahead, pulling me along with him.

And _geez_ was this kid strong, I swear I almost felt my shoulder dislocate from the strain, it was like being pulled by a runaway horse. It was at that moment I began to understand the downside of befriending someone this hyperactive.

Note to self, keep Naruto away from sugar.

* * *

"Tada~~~" Naruto threw the door wide open and proudly waved me into his apartment.

The human-rocket, that is affectionately known as Naruto, had run the entire three miles to his apartment building, tearing through the entryway doors, not even slowing down as he ran past elevators in favor of rushing up the stairs.

The little I had been able to see on my way up here however told me a lot about the place. The expensive wallpaper, impeccably clean corridors and most importantly the elevators, a luxury in Konoha, told me that the rent of the place must have been expensive. Something that reassured me to say the least.

One of the primary reasons why I had so strongly insisted on this 'sleep over' was because I want to examine Naruto's living conditions. So very little is known about Naruto's life before the start of the Manga. I knew he was isolated and lonely but that was about it. Everything else was guess work.

While I had heard many theories from fans about how he was mistreated but I had doubts that was the case. It was never shown in the show, and I had trouble picturing Sarutobi ever allowing something like that to happen. He'd have to be unbelievably stupid to allow anyone to provoke a Jinchuuriki. But still, just because I couldn't believe it, doesn't mean it couldn't have happened. The Hyuuga Affair two years ago taught me a harsh lesson on making assumptions.

I had to make sure. Just to be safe. But to be honest, I didn't expect to find anything bad.

Which is why what I saw came as a total shock.

It felt as if someone had punched me in the gut when I got my first glimpse of Naruto's apartment.

"Oh…my…God," The words spilled unbidden from my mouth as I stared in horror at the living room. Stepping forward, being careful not to set my foot in the puddle of spoiled milk split on the ground, "What the hell happened?"

The entire place had been vandalized.

I couldn't even the see the apartment's hardwood floor beneath the ocean of trash that flooded the ground along with almost every conceivable surface. Bits and pieces of half-eaten food were tossed around every corner of the room while graffiti covered the walls, ruining what once could have been beautifully colored wallpapers.

Most of the furniture was wrecked. I spotted what may have once been an elegant green sofa piled up in one side of the room, its insides gutted and its white stuffing spilled onto the floor around it. In another corner was a stack of dirty clothing with a bucket of spilled paint dripping onto the floor next to it.

This…this was worse than I had ever imaged. What kind of people would allow a child to live in a dump like this? There is-

-Wait! Wait-wait, no, this isn't right. Something is wrong here, this is all wrong. Naruto wasn't supposed to be abused or mistreated. He was supposed to be filthy rich for god's sake, why would they allow him to live like this? Did I miss something, was…was I wrong about everything?

"Naruto," the horror I was feeling was clear in my voice as I kept staring in the room. Dear lord was that a broken unicycle on the kitchen counter? "What happened?"

"Huh?" Naruto crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes in confusion at me. "What's wrong with you?"

"Your apartment, who did this to it?"

"Ahh," The blonde's eyes widen with comprehension before he scratched the back of his head with an embarrassed smile. "Sorry about that. I kinda got a bit excited about the Academy last night and couldn't sleep, so I may have over did it a bit. Ah, but don't worry, the cleaning lady will be here in a couple of days to fix it up."

"Cleaning lady?" I parroted stupidly at him as I felt a suspicion take root and grow in me. "…Naruto, who was the one who did all of…" I didn't have the words to describe the state of the apartment so I just waved a hand around the room, "_this?"_

"Hmm? Me, of course." Naruto looked at me as if I was asking the obvious, "Who else could it be?"

"You mean the graffiti on the walls, the trash on the floor, the ruined sofa," I looked up as something caught my eye, "and the tomato sauce on the ceiling, all of it was you? Why do you even have tomato sauce in the ceiling, how did it get up there?"

"Tomato sauce?" Naruto glance up at the large splatter of red on the ceiling, "Oh, that's not sauce. That's just my blood."

I gaped at the madman in the shape of a six year old boy as he crossed his arms proudly before him. "I'm going to regret asking, but _why_ do you have your blood splattered all over the ceiling?"

Naruto puffed out his chest. "Ninja training."

"Ninja training." I echoed, feeling my confusion only grow the more he talked.

"Yup," He nodded, "You know how Ninja's can jump high, really high. Like, from the ground to over a building high. Well, I was practicing my jumping."

"And what, you jumped so high that you bashed your head on the ceiling?"

"Nah, turns out I couldn't jump anywhere near that high." Naruto looked embarrassed as he rubbed the back of his head, though over what I wasn't sure. "That's why I had to use the springs from the Sofa to help me." He pointed to the gutted Sofa in one corner, where an assortment of springs lay spilt on the floor around it.

I raised a finger, a retort on my lips, before I stopped and just face-palmed. It was quickly beginning to dawn at me, that this boy… was an idiot. I was so used to dealing with Neji that I forgot that not every child our age was as smart as him. That even all the Chakra in the world flowing through your brain could stop someone from being stark raving mad.

"Alright, then what about the rest of this. Why do you have graffiti on the wall?"

"Graffiti?" He looked confused. "What are you taking about? What's wrong with my drawings?"

"Drawings?" I turned to look back at the wall and realized that, yes, what I first took for graffiti was in fact drawing. Children drawings to be more precise, made with crayons and paint. "The unicycle?"

He shrugged. "It looked like fun. Turned out it wasn't."

Frustrated I pointed at the floor, "The huge ocean of trash?"

"Ah…aha…ahahaha," He awkwardly laughed and scratched the back of his head. "About that. Well, like I said the cleaning lady hasn't been over today so no one had the chance to clean it up."

"And when exactly was that last time this cleaning lady came over? Last year?"

"No, she comes over twice a week." He tilted his head and frowned, "in fact she was here yesterday morning."

"Yesterday?" I looked around the room that had more in common with a trash heap than a living room. "And what? Did she see this mess and run?"

"Of course she didn't. She may not be very friendly but she works really hard. I swear it's almost like magic watching her clean, by the time she finishes the place always looks brand new."

It took me a few moments to process what he was saying, and I had to ask him to clarify because there is no way he said why I thought he was saying. "Naruto," I made sure to speak slowly, pronouncing each word carefully so that there is no possibility of a misunderstanding, "are you trying to tell me, that you made all of this," I threw my hands out to indicated what I meant by 'this', "in a single day. After the lady had just finished fixing the place up?"

"Yup." The madman nodded proudly, before frowning. "Though I don't think the cleaning lady minds. She cleans it every time and never complains. Though I don't think she likes me very much."

Of course she doesn't like you, you lunatic! How she can resist the urge not to bash your skull in with a broom if she had to clean this place up twice a week I do not know, but she much have a patience of a saint.

Oh my God, now I get it! Naruto, he's basically a rich spoiled kid isn't he? One that was never taught to make his bed or tidy up his room because the maid will clean it up for him the next day.

No one ever tried to discipline him for making a mess have they? I mean who will? No one wants to piss off the kid the with the killer demon fox in his belly, well other than the Hokage. But seeing as he is probably the only person who is even remotely nice to Naruto, he probably can't bring himself to be strict with the kid and risk alienating him more than he already is.

For most of my past life I had to raise both of my sons alone. Which meant not only was I responsible for raising them properly, but cleaning after their messes as well. And it didn't take me long after becoming a single father to twin boys to learn to hate, no _utterly loath _it when they made a mess. And looking at the pigsty that Naruto called a home, I felt something snap in me.

Without thinking both my hands clamped down onto Naruto's the shoulders. "Naruto," I tried smiling at the boy but it must have come out wrong because I saw his eyes widen before he tried to lean as far back away from me in my grip as he could. "We are going to clean this place up alright? And I don't care if we're here until sunrise, neither you nor I are going to stop cleaning until this place is spotless, understand?"

"What, why?" He whined out and pouted at me, "Why can't we just leave it for the cleaning lady to-"

"_**CLEAN-NOW-UNDERSTAND**_!"

"Sir, Yes Sir!" The blond shot straight up and saluted, before flying off to the supply closet.

Nodding in satisfaction, I turned around to face the garbage filled room. "Hello my old enemy," I spoke to the messy room, "we meet again."

* * *

"Hey Naruto." Pausing halfway through my sweeping, I leaned on my broom as a thought occurred to me.

"What?" He grumbled from where he stood by the wall. He had a wet rag in his hands that he was using to clean the paint off the walls, a bucket of water by his feet. To my surprise it was actually working.

I had at first feared that the wallpaper was unsalvageable and had to be replaced, but it seems that the stuff was waterproof or something because it remained undamaged even when scrubbed with soap and water. I guess they must have swapped out the regular wallpaper for this kind after they realized that Naruto would just keep ruining them.

I ignored his tone. He's been in a sour mood for the last hour or so since we had begun cleaning, at least he wasn't giving me the silent treatment anymore. "I've just realized, this place is a Shinobi-only complex isn't it?"

I hadn't noticed it at first, seeing as I was all but dragged up here at the speed of sound, but I don't recall seeing anyone in the apartment complex other than Ninjas.

"Yeah, and what about it?" He frowned at a particularly stubborn spot of paint that refused to be scrubbed off.

"Nothing, it's just the first time I've ever been in one." I remember Kou pointing out places like this to me before. They were actually rather common in Konoha. Shinobi tended to have trouble mixing in with civilians, in particular those who fought in wars, and many found it simpler to live among their own kind. Or at least that's what Kou tells me- _Oh Shit, Kou!_

_Where the hell is Kou!?_

In my panic I quickly glanced around me in hopes of spotting my errant bodyguard, as if he would magically appear in the apartment. Naturally there was no in here but Naruto and me. I had forgotten Kou at the compound! Oh shit, I was in so much trouble.

One of the single iron-clad rules that I had to obey is never leave the compound without an escort. Ever! As one of the few Hyuuga without the Caged Seal I was a prime target for kidnapping, and my father would rip me in two if he find out I was running around without a guard of some kind.

Wait- wait a second, calm down. Wasn't Hiashi there when he sent us off? He knew that it was only me and Naruto, so why didn't he stop us? Surely he must have realized that Kou wasn't with us by now and sent him after us.

Then where was he? Was Kou simply staying out of sight? With the Byakugan it's not like he needed to be in the same room to keep a close eye on me.

Quickly I turned on my Byakugan and an entire unseen world was now revealed to my eyes. Over a hundred unfamiliar Shinobi-class Chakra signatures popped out from every direction, no doubt the other residence of the building. I immediately ignored Naruto's, which shone far brighter than any untrained child should have, and quickly began searching for Kou.

Were it anyone else, I would have had trouble spotting his Chakra signature in a place filled so many others for him to blend in with, but Kou was an exception. There was a reason why he was chosen to become my guard at such a young age, and even among so many other signatures, Kou would have stood out like a grown man in a children's playground.

Kou's Chakra supply was exceptionally large, even by Shinobi standards. His would blaze like a campfire surrounded by candle in my eyes, even with the other Shinobi nearby.

It didn't take me more than a heartbeat to spot it, the unusually high Chakra signature coming from above and behind us. He was on the rooftop of one of the neighboring building, directly across the street from Naruto's. Crouching down on the railing like a bird of prey, he silently watched us even through the walls- _Wait a minute_, that wasn't Kou!

While this man's Chakra supply was large, easily matching Kou's in size and more, his signature was completely different. To my eyes Kou's Chakra always appeared like calm flowing water, a common hereditary trait among the Hyuuga, while this man's Chakra crackled and sparkled like bottled lightning.

There was no way that this was Kou or any other Hyuuga, I would have remembered a Chakra signature as unusual as this. But there was no doubt that he was watching us, even though his mask I could see the way his single eye tracked our forms.

I admit, I might have been a bit more terrified that an unknown, and potentially powerful, ninja was watching us had it not been for the Anbu mask he wearing. That his mask was carved in the shape of a dog only further relieved me.

Kakashi lazily waved a down at me, letting me know he knew I had spotted him. That there was a wall blocking his line of sight to us and that I wasn't looking anywhere at his general direction only served to confirm what I had already heard about his skill as a Jounin, and his reputation as a showoff.

"Hey Naruto, did you know that-" I paused when Kakashi raised a finger to his lips in a 'shushing' gesture, while raising the thumb of his other hand to one side of his neck before he slowly dragged it across his throat.

"Do I know what?" Naruto paused scrubbing to glance over his shoulder.

"Nothing," I quickly replied and resumed sweeping, hoping that he didn't notice how pale my face is, "Nothing at all. Don't worry about it."

Naruto gave me a perplexed look before shrugging and going back to cleaning the wall, grumbling under his breath all the while about stupid walls and stupid bug-eyed boys.

Now I knew Kakashi was bluffing, or at least I hoped he was. Kakashi would never kill me, not over something like this at least. But if history repeated itself, then there was the very real possibility that Kakashi could end up as my Sensei in the near future. And there was no way I wanted to get on his bad side.

This was the guy who allowed Genin, fresh out of the Academy wet behind the ear Genin, to help him fight _the_ Momochi Zabuza, a A-rank missing-ninja, after only teaching them the tree walking exercise… and nothing else. And that was when he _liked_ them. God knows what he did to kids that he hated, but I sure as hell didn't want to find out.

So I continued my cleaning, all while pretending that I wasn't under the watchful eye of a highly trained killer who had been murdering people since he was five years old.

* * *

"You know," Looking down at the half-filled garbage bag that I was holding open, "I'm actually quite surprised. I haven't seen so much as single instant ramen cup anywhere, and here I thought this place will be filled with the stuff."

It had been several hours since we started cleaning up the place and we were nearing the end, and I have to say, the place was completely unrecognizable. Underneath all of the trash this place really was a first class apartment, far better than any apartment I had ever lived in my previous life.

Though it only had a single bedroom, it was huge, probably design for a couple to share. It had a full kitchen with all the 'modern' equipment along with a well-stocked pantry – the so called cleaning lady apparently doubled as a cook, and would leave several meals for Naruto to eat throughout the week – and it came with a living and dining area.

The place's bathroom also came with a bathtub, and I don't mean one of these cramped ones you'd find in Japanese apartments but one with a bathtub so large that several fully gown people could squeeze in with room to spare.

"Ramen?" Naruto sounded confused as he dumped one of the last remaining pieces of trash into the garbage bag. "What's that?"

I stared at him in disbelief, so shocked that I barely noticed bag slipping through my nerveless fingers. "You…You don't know what Ramen is?" Even to my ears my voice sounded off. I walked up to Naruto and held him by his shoulders. "You're not lying, are you? You really don't know what Ramen is?"

"N-No." Naruto answered, sounding a bit nervous, "I'm…I'm sorry, I guess?"

"No, no my boy. You have nothing to be sorry about. This is a wonderful, wonderful thing." And it really was too. I can't believe I'm going to have the chance to cut this addiction in the bud. "Now listen carefully to me." I brought my head closer to him as if I was about to part with a secret. "Ramen is a horrible food. It's fatty, unhealthy, basically pure junk food that would only weaken your potential as a Ninja. But it has a curse on it. There are some people who only need to take a single sip of the stuff become instantly addicted, and will never stop eating it. Ever."

"Really?" He asked wide-eyed.

"Really." I nodded solemnly. God I love gullible five-year olds. They make it so much easier for me to manipulate them. Plus it's not as if I was lying. Ramen may actually be addictive drug as far as the Uzumaki are concerned. "Which is why, for your own good, I want you to promise me that you will never, ever eat ramen. Please Naruto, you have to promise me this, this is important."

"Ok, I promise." Naruto nodded once, his face as earnest as I had ever seen it. And I had no doubt he meant it.

It took everything to keep my face straight and not ruin the serious moment my breaking out in cheers. YES! Yes I can't believe I did it! Mentally I dropped down to my knees and raise my hands to the sky. Yes! No more ramen, no more meals consisting of only instant cup ramen! I had too much of that crap in college and now I never have to eat those disgusting things ever again. Thank you of merciful god!

Oh this is fantastic. Wait, does this mean if I act early enough, I can stop Naruto from developing some of his more annoying bad habits. Like the horrible orange jumpsuits that he insists on wearing? Oh Dear Lord, does this mean I can stop him from saying that Dattebayo crap every other sentence. That's fantastic! I better get on it right away before-

"I will never ever eat ramen for the rest of my life Hikaru, _Dattebayo_."

…Oh fate you vindictive son of a bitch! Or was it irony I should be cursing? Ah well, I guess I shouldn't be greedy. One miracle is more that I had ever hoped for. You know what, I think this calls for a celebration.

"Hey Naruto," I shot a quick glance towards at the pantry, I was pretty sure he had all the ingredients in stock. "How about I cook us dinner as a reward for all of our hard work?"

"You can cook?" he asked, giving me a dubious look.

"Of course I can cook. Not only can I cook, I know the secret recipe for the greatest food in existence. It is the food of the Gods my friend. The food of the Gods."

"Really?" Naruto was actually hopping on his toes in excitement, "What's it called?"

I shot the hyperactive blond a smile, "It's called pizza."

* * *

"That-" Naruto had to stop and release a large belch, "…That was really good."

"Yup," I smirked as the blond leaned back on his seat with a satisfied groan and patted his stomach. "And that is why pizza if the _real_ food of the gods."

It was amazing how little variety of food they had in this world. I mean I could understand it if they didn't have the ingredients to make it but that wasn't the case. They simply never thought of so many of the different recipes I took for granted back home, in particular western-style food.

Pizza being the prime example. They had cheese, bread and tomatoes but no one ever thought to combine the three together. Though it wasn't as big a hit with my family as it was with Naruto, who had gobbled up three full sized pizzas.

"***Burp* **Amen." The miniature black hole leaned back into his chair, his face entirely covered with sauce and bits of cheese that he had spilled over himself in haste to eat.

Sighing in half exasperation and half amusement at the boy, I stood up from my seat and made my way around the kitchen table. Picking up a couple of napkins on the way, I walked up to Naruto and grabbed him by his chin.

"Hey-what?" he squawked as I began to wipe the tomato sauce that covered his mouth and most of his face.

"Hold still." I ordered, "I'm trying to clean you up, so stop moving."

Naruto instantly obeyed, shutting his eyes in displeasure as I wiped his face, though he couldn't stop squirming in his seat the entire time.

"There, finished." I gave his face a quick look over and nodded, satisfied that I had gotten everything. "See, that wasn't so bad now was it you big baby?"

"No but it was still annoying." He crossed his arms and pouted.

I rolled my eyes, "Ok enough of that now." I pulled Naruto up to his feet and pushed him towards the bathroom. "Go and take a bath, you need it. And don't worry about the kitchen, I'll stay back and clean it."

"Alright, alright already." He yawned as he made his way to the bathroom, complying without putting up a fight. Either too tired from all the cleaning or simply too mellowed out after the meal.

"Now that we're alone again," I turned to face the mess I left in the kitchen after cooking, a demented grin on my lips, "are you ready for the second round my enemy?"

With all the servants in the compounded I never had to clean up in my life, not in this one at least. I had forgotten how satisfying it was to see something dirty transform into something clean and organized.

Not ten minutes later I was done, nodding proudly to myself as I examine the kitchen. The place was spotless and not so much as a single item out of place. Perfect.

Sighing, I placed my hands on my back and stretched, before turning to join Naruto in the bath. That was something you'd never have seen me do in my past life. I was as body shy as they came but I had that habit long beaten out of me.

Nudity, at least towards the same gender, was not a bit deal here, quite the opposite. I was forced to learn to let go of my body shyness pretty quickly when my dad kept taking me to the hot springs but in the end the reward was worth it.

I have to tell you, hot springs are to die for. The first time I went to one after a hard workout, I honestly thought I had died and gone to heaven. It was that good. Though I could have done without the bunch of naked men that filled the place, after a while I no longer noticed them anymore.

Picking up a towel and a change of clothing on the way, I slid the bathroom door open and stepped in, quickly shutting the door behind me to stop the steam from escaping.

"Huh-Hikaru!?" Naruto called out from behind the screen that separated the changing area from the bath. "What are you doing here?"

"What does it look like I'm doing?" I pulled my shirt over my head and tossed it in one corner before I began to unbutton my pants. "I'm joining you."

"What!" He Yelled. "But you can't do that! I'm not dressed!"

"Of course you're naked, who the hell would take a bath clothed?" I rolled my eyes at his behavior as I finished undressing. Stepping up to the screen I slid it open and stepped in before shutting it behind me.

Naruto let out a high pitched embarrassed squeak upon seeing me before dropping deeper into the water, so that everything but his head was submerged and hidden from view.

"Oh stop being so shy will you?" I snapped at the boy, exacerbated by his overreaction. I walked up to the bath, on the opposite side he was in and stepped in. The water was nice and really hot, just the way I liked it. I released a sigh as I dropped into the water, submerging myself to my shoulders, before leaning back and resting my head on the bathtub's ledge as I relaxed, shutting my eyes to fully enjoy the experience.

After a few minutes of relaxing, I noticed how awfully silent the place was, and peeked opened a single eye to check up on Naruto. I barely bite back a sigh when I saw how nervous and red-faced Naruto was, almost as if he was trying to hide himself in the water. "Oh for the love of -You're a man aren't you? Then man up!"

"No, I'm not!" Naruto exclaimed while vigorously shaking his head.

"Semantics." I waved his concerns away. Boy, Man, same difference. For a guy who will someday happily run around as a naked woman in public, he was awfully body conscious as a child wasn't he? "Really, I never figured you as the shy type-"

I paused and stopped speaking as I caught sight of something unusual in the water. I looked down at it before blinking. Then I blinked again, and once more to make sure. But nope, nothing change. Feeling completely bewildered and not understanding what I was seeing, I slowly raised my eyes to look at the utterly red-faced Naruto, who had by now submerged himself up to his nose in the water.

"Hey Naruto." I asked, feeling more perplexed and confused than I could ever remember being. "What the hell happened to your dick?"

* * *

And that was how I learned that Naruto was in fact a girl.

* * *

**AN: Haha! How many of you saw that coming? I admit I was laughing my ass of as I wrote it.**

**Oh and I only realized this after a reviewer pointed it out to me but if Hikaru and Naruto get together (and I'm not saying they will), then that means that this story will have a canon pairing since Hikaru is technically a male-Hinata.**

**I find it the greatest of ironies that Canon Hiashi wanted a strong and powerful Heir but got Hinata instead, while this one had his wish granted only for him to end up wishing for a kind one instead. Really Hiashi, maybe you'd finally be happy if Hanabi was your first born.**

**Too many parents in the reincarnated stories never notice anything weird about their kids. No matter how hard you try you cannot pretend to be a completely normal child. There would always be flashes of your true nature shading all your actions. And when the person in question is jaded, or even broken, then it becomes all too apparent that there is something very wrong with your child. – Hiashi noticed, and it terrifies him. He doesn't love his son any less for it but he can no longer pretend that Hikaru is normal.**

**One more chapter till the end of the arc, and I'm REALLY looking forward to writing it because it will have one hell of a plot twist that I hope none of you will see coming (I'm pretty sure no one had done something like this before) ****and unlike this chapter which showcased Hikaru's nice side (yes, this was his nice side), that chapter will showcase his ruthless side that I promised you and will give you all a glimpse into the true nature of our main protagonist (I can't rightfully refer to him as our Hero)****and should kick-start main part of the story.**

**Be sure to tell me what you thought of the chapter and thanks for reading.**


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3 : Birth of a Monster**

* * *

"_Honored Ancestor."_

Such nostalgia. How long had it been since I've last heard this voice?

In the entirety of my life I have never seen a place so tranquil as this, a true paradise given form. The lush green valley was filled with the soothing sound of flowing water, as a river flowed through the heart of it, fed by the distance falls. The stream snaked around the tiny boulders that dotted the valley, and danced around the trees that grew from the fertile ground alongside the endless grass of evergreen.

Other than the soft murmur of the river, the only sound that could be heard was the singing of the birds as they greeted the calming dawn. Truly, what else would you could call this place but paradise?

But my eyes saw none of it, drawn as they were to the back of the man who stood before me.

Long raven locks fell from his head, cascading down all the way to the small of his back, strands of which danced in air as they were tenderly lifted by the breeze. Though he faced away from me, his eyes set towards the distant falls, he knew I was there.

Then he turned around, revealing to me a face that overwhelmed me nostalgia.

How long, how long has it been since I've last laid eyes upon this face?

Though I did not know this man, of that I knew beyond any doubt, I still recognized his face. The set of his eyes, the lift to his nose, way his lips curved just so, they were all familiar to me. So very familiar. They reminded me of someone who was once so dear to me, one that I not seen or heard of for a very, very long time.

My heart ached at the sight of him as I felt tears cloud my sight before they spilled down my cheeks.

Why? Why did it hurt so much just looking at him? Why did my heart bleed as if it had been cut by a blade?

"Honored Ancestor," He spoke. An honest, open smile on his lips, as he gazed at me with those crimson-red eyes of his, before bowing deeply towards me, moving with such grace it was almost inhuman, "You grant me a great honor with your presence. Though my home is a humble one please feel welcome, for all within it is yours to command."

_Who are you?_

"Hmm," His eyebrows rose up in surprise, yet somehow, he even made that action appear elegant. "You do not know?" He looked perplexed, gazing at me with puzzlement before realization seemed to dawn on him and he nodded. "Ah, I see. It seems you have not fully woken yet."

_Woken?_

He smiled at me, "It matters not. Please forgive the rumblings of this foolish man and do not concern yourself over the matter. Instead allow me the honor of introducing myself to you." He held both his hands up before him, his left clasping his right which was formed into a fist, before bowing deeply once again.

"My name is O-"

* * *

"-karu. _Psst_, hey Hikaru. Hikaru, wake up!"

I was jousted from my sleep when someone shoved me on the shoulder. Startled by the unexpected touch, I jumped away to the side, which was rather unfortunate seeing as I was sitting on a chair at the moment.

A loud thud echoed through the classroom, and the next I knew, I was staring up at the room's white painted ceiling from where I my spot on the floor. No, wait a minute, the ceiling wasn't painted white but a light beige. Huh, I never noticed that before. Live and learn I guess.

"Hikaru," I turned my head to the side, towards the direction of the voice, only to find an exasperated Iruka looking down at me. He bit back his first response and pinched the bridge of his nose, before waving me towards my chair. "Just get back to your seat already."

Smiling sheepishly at him, I quickly pushed myself to my feet and, ignoring the laughter of my fellow classmates, dropped back into my seat. When the room began to calm down and Iruka, after one last long-suffering sigh, resumed his lesson, I took the opportunity it presented to elbow the still snickering Naruto in the ribs.

"What the hell was that for?" I hissed at her.

"Sorry, sorry," She whispered back, though going by the she way wouldn't stop snickering I didn't believe her, "I didn't think I'd startle you so badly."

I muttered something under my breath but left it at that, I had no one but myself to blame for falling asleep in class. Something I had rarely done after my first couple weeks of the Academy.

It wasn't my fault that I kept dozing off. I knew everything that Iruka was trying to teach the class so well that I could have taught them myself. It was like being forced to learn the ABCs all over again in kindergarten, you try staying awake through something like that. Iruka was naturally infuriated with me constantly falling asleep in his class but he quickly learned there was nothing he could do about it.

It wasn't like the usual punishments would worked for me. Sending me to stand in the corner did nothing but make me even _more_ bored than I already was, which just exacerbated the problem, and sending me to do laps was even worse as he quickly learned that I preferred running over sitting in his class.

Things finally began looking up when he realized that I wasn't lazy, just bored out of my mind because I found the coursework too unchallenging. Once I had demonstrated to him that I was years ahead of the rest of the class he immediately recommended me for a fast-track program, even though I warned him how pointless it was to even try. Sure enough, my father shot that suggestion down as soon as the words left Iruka's mouth.

Since then we have made our peace and learned to live with each other. So long as I maintain my position as the top student in class and didn't bother the others, he was willing to look the other way if I pulled out a book to read during class. Which was great for me as it meant I could continue my research in class, then catchup on my physical training when I get home.

Despite being constantly ranked number one in class I was never among Iruka's favorite students, and I doubt I ever would be. Can't say I blamed the guy, it was hard to be proud in a student whose accomplishments you had nothing to do with. Doubly so when said student outclassed everyone he personally taught. Though to give credit it where it's due, he had never treated me unfairly because of it. The guy really was an excellent teacher.

Still, I wouldn't have overreacted so badly to being waken up if it wasn't for that weird dream. What was that about anyway?

"So, why'd you wake me?" I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and resisted the urge to yawn.

"That's right," Naruto instantly dropped her snickering as her face took on an excited expression. She quickly reached out to the two strips of paper that was left on her desk and offered one to me, "Iruka-sensei passed this around. He said we should use it to-"

"To find out our chakra affinity." I finished for her as I recognized the chakra paper for what it was. Looking around I spotted several other students trying to use the paper with mixed results.

Internal chakra manipulation was natural and tended to come easy to most, while external chakra manipulation, which was needed to activate the strips of paper, was far more difficult. Most of the children here were not quite at the level where they could pull it off in their first try. Or even their second.

Naruto just pouted at me, "So you already knew." She crossed her arms and looked away. "It's not fair. How come you always know so much Hikaru?"

"It's called reading ahead Naruto." I told the girl, "If you'd only read all of the books I gave you instead of the minimum I allow you to get away with, you'd know just as much as I do."

She stuck her tongue out at me. "Blah, books." She spat out before glaring at the medical book on my desk, the one had I been using as an improvised pillow just a minute ago. "I can't understand how you can even like those things, they're boring, evil things. Evil I tell you!"

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes at the girl. Really, no matter how hard I tried I was never able to get Naruto into reading. It was like Kakashi had once said, Naruto was a Kinesthetic Learner. While she was nowhere near as stupid as she behaved at the show, and thank every deity out there for that mercy, theory was never her strong point. Practical lessons on the other hand is where she excelled in.

Now after two hard years of training her and playing on her strength, she was not the dead last she was supposed to be. Technically she was among the top female students of the class, though that had more to do with the bad turnout of talented Kunoichi in this year's crop of students than her own ability.

As Naruto kept on prattling on the evils of books, I took the chance to examine her.

At eight year old, Naruto's appearance hasn't changed much since we first met. Her love for orange clothing hasn't changed, though thankfully I managed to convince her to tone it down to a more reasonable level and mix it up with other colors, but everything she wears was still predominately orange. Other than gaining a couple of more inches in height and growing her hair out so that they just brushed her shoulders, very little about her had changed appearance wise over the years.

The last change may have been my fault. Apparently being mistaken for a boy all those years ago was traumatizing enough experience that she never wanted a repeat of again. But really, that wasn't my fault, honest. How was I supposed to know she was a girl? If there was anyone that should be blamed, then it was Kishimoto.

Now I know that sounds like I'm avoiding my responsibility but just hear me out on this. I have lived in this world for eight years now and after thinking long and hard on it, I have come to the conclusion that this universe was in fact the one and the same universe as the Naruto series. Other than my existence and the direct changes that resulted from it, it was a perfect replica of the Manga.

But if that were the case then why wasn't Naruto a boy? Or why wasn't I kidnapped? The solution was simple; the reason why somethings were different was because Kishimoto had altered the plot of the Manga so that it would sell better.

Naruto had always been a girl. But Kishimoto, knowing that most of his audience would be young adolescent boys, predicted that they would have trouble relating to a female lead. So in order to better suit his target demographic, he had changed his main character's gender from female to male.

And when you start thinking about it that way, it makes you wonder what else did Kishimoto change? What other details was he willing to twist to make a better story? That's when it hit me, the Hyuuga Affair. Everything relating to the event was something he made up to make the story more interesting.

The whole Neji character arc and his past, all of it was something Kishimoto made up to spice up the show. And let's admit it, Neji's past and character was awesome to watch even if it didn't seem to make a lot of sense in retrospect.

Thinking about it, Hiashi could have nipped the entire issue in the bud. All he had to do was explain to Neji that he did not murder his father; rather Hizashi had willingly sacrificed himself to save his life. But for some stupid reason Hiashi had for years allowed Neji to continue living under the false assumption that he murdered his own brother.

Hell, why did Hizashi even allow himself to be killed in front of his son, couldn't he have waited for the boy to leave or at least explain to him what he planned to do? See what I mean? Plot holes everywhere.

Then there was other things as well that supported my theory; especially that Naruto had always been a girl. Think back on Naruto's behavior during the entire show, only this time imagine she was a girl instead of a boy, and things will start to make a frightening amount of sense.

Naruto's obsession with getting Sasuke back had nothing to do with their friendship or her promise to Sakura, she wanted to get Sasuke back was because she was in love with him. And while the thought of anyone falling for that prick makes me sick, it all fits. Even that accidental kiss between the two at the start of the show takes on a completely different light if you realized that Naruto was a girl.

Hell, even Sai's infamous nickname makes a lot more sense now. She really was 'Dickless'.

That's right, turns out that the Naruto series was nothing more than one big fat love story between Sasuke and Naruto.

Shuddering at the thought of me ever enjoying a show about a romance between those two, I quickly looked for something to take my mind off it and was fortunate enough to find just the thing.

Snatching one of the strips of chakra papers out of her hand, I interrupted her speech about evils books, which she had still been rattling on about. "Hey Naruto, are you ever going to use that thing or not."

Naruto quickly brightened at that, "That's right! I almost forgot." She held the paper in front of her face, gazing at it in excitement before freezing. Naruto slowly turned back to look at me with a sheepish smile on her face, "How do these things work again?"

I rubbed my temples before sighing at the girl, "And this is why you should crack open a book from time to time, or at least try to pay a bit more attention in class." While Naruto was far from stupid, she had the attention span of a gnat.

"Sorry, sorry." She rubbed the back of her head in embarrassment before turning her excited blue eyes on me. "So, how do they work?"

I raised my hand which held the strip of paper between my index and middle fingers, "Simple, just draw out your chakra from your body and direct it into the paper and that's pretty much it, the rest is automatic. The paper will undergo a different chemical reaction depending on your charka affinity. If you're chakra leans towards fire it will burn, if its water it will get wet, wind will cut in two, lightning will crinkle it, while earth will turn it to dust." I explained before demonstrating by pouring my own chakra into the paper.

To me, calling on my chakra had always felt like drawing water from a full but deep well. It wasn't enough to simply open up my reserves, it had to be coaxed out, just like pulling a bucket from a well, but the hard part was making sure to only draw out the precise amount of chakra that I needed and nothing more. Too little and nothing will happen, too much and I'll end up wasting my chakra.

As a baby the amount of chakra I had access to was ridiculously small. So little that it was emptied as soon as I tapped into it. That had forced me to learn how to ration my chakra, to use as little as possible without wasting so much as a single drop, for every drop of chakra was precious, something that I could not easily replace.

Those lessons that I learned long ago, at a time where I could neither talk nor walk, serve me well now.

To activate the paper I needed only a minuscule amount of chakra, less than a thimble full, so I used exactly that. The amount of chakra I drew on was tiny, so small I could barely sense it, before I shaped the chakra into a thin thread and weaved it up my arm, thorough my hand and out of my fingers before I used it to pierce the chakra paper with all of the precision needed to thread a needle.

Not a drop was wasted. My chakra control had always been my strong point. Even among Hyuugas, who were famed for their control, mine was remarkable.

The paper instantly crumpled between my fingers, confirming what I had already known.

"It crinkled," Naruto looked fascinated by the paper's transformation, "So that means it's lightning right?"

"That's right." I nodded and knocked my knuckles on the medical textbook I had been studying. "Every element has its own set of advantages, it's up to you to figure out what they are and how to use them to their full potential. That's why I've been studying medicine, to work with my affinity."

"Hmm, so that's why you've been reading these things so much recently." She frowned down at the textbook in question, "So you plan on becoming a medical-nin?"

I smiled and shook my head, "No, I don't." And before she had the chance to ask me anything else I nodded towards the remaining strip of chakra paper in her hand. "Now are you ever going to use that thing or not?"

"That's right, it's my turn." Straightening up in her seat, Naruto held the paper in both of her hands before shutting her eyes to concentrate. Taking a long deep breath before slowly exhaling it out, Naruto called upon her chakra.

A wave of blue chakra erupted out of her, so dense that it was visible to my eye even without the aid of the Byakugan. It swirled around, burning in the air like liquid fire, fighting her every step of the way as she tried to guide it towards the paper in her hands.

If calling on chakra was like drawing water from a well for me, then for Naruto it was like opening the gates of a damn. She never needed to coax it out, her chakra was all too willing to come gushing out on its own. Where normal people needed to pull on their chakra, Naruto needed to push it back or else she would be overwhelmed by it.

So instead of using just the minimum amount of chakra she needed, nothing more than a drop, she had called forth flood instead. Though to be fair even without Naruto's unique set of circumstances chakra control of that level would have been no easy feat. So far I was the only one in our age group that could manage chakra control that precise.

And then at last, she succeeded, managing to reign in chakra her and force it into the her hands. The paper in hands was filled with her chakra, surrounded by it, flooded by it, before it-

"It split?" Naruto blinked owlishly at the strip of paper that was cut cleanly in two, before turning to me, "That means its wind right?"

"Yup," I nodded, feeling a sense of satisfaction build up in me at the sight of it, "it's wind alright." This only helped to confirm that my theory was right. That Naruto had the same element as the manga was proof that this really was the same universe.

Then the chakra paper burst into flames.

"Wha-Ouch!" Naruto yelped and dropped the flaming paper before she stuck her singed fingers in her mouth. She glared down at the chakra paper, which had already burned itself out and had turned to ash. "What was that?"

I just stared dumbly at what remained of the paper, which had suffered the same fate as all the theories I had about this world, namely, burst into flames and burned down to ashes.

No, this was wrong. This wasn't supposed to happen. Naruto was only supposed to have a wind affinity in the manga, not fire. But then…did this mean I was wrong?

Naruto blinked as the same realization hit her as well, "Wait. It burst into flame, after it was cut in two. But that means…" I watched as a large shit-eating grin slowly made its way up to her face. "That means I have not one but _two _chakra affinities. Fire and wind."

Naruto jumped off her seat and stomp one foot on her desk. "Ha! You hear that Sasuke-teme? I got two affinities!" She yelled out, "Beat that Uchiha!"

A piece of chalk sailed through the air and slammed into Naruto's forehead with so much force that it knocked her off the table and onto the ground, even as it crumbled into dust from the impact.

"Quiet down, Naruto." Iruka ordered from the front of the class, bouncing a second piece of chalk up and down in his hand. "First of all Sasuke isn't even here today so he can't hear you. Second you don't have two affinities."

_What!_ My eyes shot toward Iruka as a flicker of hope reignited in me.

"What!" Naruto, equally as surprised as I was, leapt back up onto her feet, "But-but Iruka-sensei, I saw the paper get cut in two before it caught on fire, I swear! I'm not lying."

"I'm not accusing you of lying Naruto, just misinterpreting the results." Iruka explained. "You are correct that your affinity is indeed wind, but you're wrong about your fire affinity. If you'd been paying attention to my lessons, you'd have known that chakra paper is highly sensitive to chakra. So much so that it has the tendency to ignite when too much chakra is poured through it." He pointed to the pile of ash on her desk. "Just like what happened to you. Which was why I warned everyone when I handed the strips out to use only a _little_ bit of chakra."

Oh thank god for Iruka-sensei, the greatest teacher in this universe. Damn it Naruto, don't scare me like that! You almost gave me a heart attack.

"A-ahaha," Naruto let out an awkward laugh as she realized her mistake, "Oops?"

Iruka just sighed and pointed at her desk, "Just sit down Naruto and pay better attention from now on."

"You betcha Iruka-sensei." Naruto quickly agreed and dropped back on into her seat. The moment Iruka looked away however, Naruto quickly dropped her smile and glared at an empty sear near the front of the class. "That Sasuke-teme, it's not fair. Why does he get to ditch class today and not me?"

I turned my eyes on the girl, "You mean you haven't heard?"

Naruto just looked perplexed and cocked her head at me. "Heard what?"

It took me just a second to confirm that she was being honest. Naruto never could lie to me. It was her eyes; they always showed what she was thinking.

"Nothing," I picked up my book and began reading, more for an excuse to drop the topic than anything. "If you don't know about it then it's fine. You'll find out about it sooner or later anyway."

"Eh, that only makes me want to know even more now. Hikaru don't be like that. Come on, please, I really want to know. Hikaru? Hey, Hikaru-" Naruto was once again knocked off her chair onto the ground as another piece of chalk slammed into the side of her head with all the precision of a sniper's bullet.

"Naruto! What did I just say about paying attention in class?"

"Sorry Iruka-sensei." Naruto quickly dragged herself back up into her seat, though this time she paid rapped attention to class. And this was exactly why I loved this guy. Iruka was the only person other than me that could reign Naruto in.

Now that Naruto's focus was finally off me, I allowed myself to relax my guard a bit and turned my thoughts back on the missing Uchiha.

Of course Sasuke wasn't here. There was no way he could be, not after what happened.

I guess I should not be surprise that Naruto hasn't heard of the rumors. Other than my family, Iruka and a couple of classmates, Naruto didn't really have anyone to talk to besides me. So there was no way she'd now why Sasuke was missing today, and I wasn't about to tell her. She was only eight years old, there were somethings she was better of not knowing.

The Uchiha Clan Massacre had happened last night.

Right now Sasuke is probably lying in some hospitable bed, trying to sleep of the effects of being forced to watch his brother murder his entire family over and over again via Tsukuyomi.

No, Naruto didn't need to know anything about that.

The news had just started to tickle in when I woke up this morning and by the time I left the entire compound was talking about it. No one knew exactly what had happened, just bits and pieces of conflicting information that brought up more questions than it answered, but it was enough for me to puzzle out the truth. No doubt the entire village will know all about it by sundown.

Which was why I had to act now, before I let this chance slip me by.

Every ninja in the Village should be in an uproar right about now and the Hokage will have no choice but to put every man he had available to either hunt Itachi down or to scour the ruins of the Uchiha compound for information.

Which in turn meant that some of the ninjas with less critical duties had to be pulled from their posts to aid in the hunt. Including the ninjas on guard duty, such as the ones that are supposed to be protecting Naruto.

I checked this morning, the usual single Anbu guard that always shadowed Naruto was missing. Not surprising, for as important as Naruto was she wasn't in any real danger while in the village. In the last two years that I've been with her there had never been a situation that the guard needed to act.

And now that the Village would be going into lockdown, if it hasn't already, there was even less chance of that happening. No, the only danger that anyone was afraid of was the one outside the walls, where Uchiha Itachi was currently roaming free.

And this presented me with a once in a lifetime opportunity.

As of this very moment, there were less Shinobi in the village than there has ever has been in my life-time. The bulk of them were out on the manhunt, which meant that there were less eyes in the Village watching.

It was time to act.

I had been planning for this literally since the day I had been born. I have never once forgotten my goal, my ambition. All of my hard work and planning had been for that one single purpose. And tonight, I will be taking my very step towards achieving my goals.

All of the pieces were in now in place.

For better or for worse, the time has come.

It was time for me to act.

I waited for a break in the lesson before nudging Naruto in the side. "Hey Naruto."

"Hmm?"

"Change of plans, looks like I'm not going to be able to make it for the sleep over at tonight. I'm going to need you to cover for me."

* * *

The lights flicked to and fro, causing the shadows to dance like living things on the stone's engraved surface. The monument was a relic, older than living memory and more ancient than the walls of the village that housed it. It should have been a decrepit thing, decaying and ruined, its engraving faded away, worn down by the hands of time.

But it stood there proud and flawless in this shadowed room, illuminated on both sides by undying flames that burned with no visible fuel, as pristine as if had just been freshly carved by the hands of its craftsman, mocking time with its very existence.

But I spared it none of my attention. For as remarkable as stone monument was, there was something far more fascinating that had captivated my attention.

From where I lay crouching in my spot along the back wall, next to the stairwell, I examined the walls of this tiny room through my Byakugan, and I felt a sense of wonderment fill me. These walls, for all of their mundane appearance were no ordinary things. I had no idea how they were made but there was just as incredible, if not more so, than the tablet it guarded.

My eyes, my Byakugan, could see through anything, past anything. I had trained it to such a level that none near my age came close to competing with me. From the very peaks of mountains, through miles of solid rocks, my eyes could see it all. It could even zoom in to chakra signature that were far too small to be seen by the naked eye. In my entire life I had never encountered anything that it could not see through.

Until now.

These walls did not exist. In my eyes they were simply not there, I could see nothing but earth and dirt. It was as if I was looking at them with ordinary eyes rather than the Byakugan for all the good it was doing me.

Even when I first set foot in the Nakano Shrine and tried searching for the Uchiha's secret meeting room, which I knew was hidden somewhere underneath the tatami mats, I could not find it anywhere with my eyes. My Byakugan showed me nothing but solid earth underneath the temple grounds. It was only after I began flipping over the mats was I able to find the entrance.

Even now when I tried looking from the inside-out it made no difference. Every time I tried looking with my eyes all I could see was endless earth and dirt all around me. It was as if the Shrine and open air that I knew was above me simply ceased to exist the moment I stepped into this room.

It had been hours since I had first found this place and hidden myself within it. No doubt the sun had set long ago and it was well into the night, but I did not allow myself to move. He was coming, I knew he was, all I had to do was be patient and I'll get my chance.

Turning my sights away from the wall, I looked back to the other treasure in this room. The stone monument, the Uchiha Clan's most prized heirloom.

On its surface was engraved the secrets of chakra. The entire origin and history of the Shinobi world was all there, free for anyone to read so long as they had the eyes to do so. The secrets of the Sharingan, the Rinnegan, all of it was written down on it.

There are so many people in the world that are willing to kill for this thing and the secrets it contained if they only knew it existed. No doubt many _have_ killed for it in the past. I wonder how many deaths had it seen over the years?

Snorting at the thought, I looked down at the Kunai I held in my gloved hands. It doesn't matter how many deaths it had already seen, because tonight I will add one more to the tally. It may have been a treasure that was worth more than its weight in gold but to me it was nothing more than bait to draw in my prey.

It really was ironic that-

Something moved.

I froze, not moving a muscle from where I was crouching down next to the staircase, the wall to my back, hidden from view from anyone looking down into the room, as I heard the telltale sound of wood scrapping against wood before moonlight flooded down into the room as someone pulled the trapdoor open.

Then nothing but silence.

I didn't move, scarily even dared to breathe from where I hid as my heart beat so loudly it my chest that it hurt. I couldn't see anything, my Byakugan all but worthless in this room with its walls, so I couldn't tell who it was. All I could do was wait for him to come to me. So waited, ready for whatever happened.

But nothing happen.

I began to count the seconds as they passed, making sure to keep my breaths slow and steady as I could make it. When it hit the thirty second mark I remained calm, certain he would come, that my trap was perfect. But doubt began to grow when the first minute crept by and still nothing. By the time the second minute had come and gone, and I still haven't heard anything I was beginning to panic.

Why wasn't he coming down? It's been too long, he should have been down my now. Was he even there anymore? He…he hasn't left had he? No, no that was impossible. He wouldn't leave, not without examining the monument. So he was still up there. But then, why hasn't he come down? Did, did I…

Did I make a mistake?

My mind went into overdrive and I mentally retraced all of my steps. I had set off right after the Academy was over, only stopping twice on my way here. Once to pick up a discarded kunai from a random training field, and once more to make sure I wasn't being followed. I wasn't. No one knows I'm here.

Then what about the Shrine. How about there, did I mess something up? Had I disturbed anything? No, I made sure to return everything to its proper place after I finished searching for the room's entrance. Though it was a pain in the ass to do so, I even managed to return the tatami mat covering the entrance to its proper position behind me so there would be no signs that anyone was ever here. There why hasn't he come down?

Did he spot me?

Was he…was he watching me right now?

No, if he could see me, then I should be able to see him. The wooden stairs was blocking our view from each other, so that wasn't possible. Then what? Why wasn't he-

_***Creek***_

My mind froze when the stairs groaned as someone began to climb down them.

His footsteps were slow and cautious, making it feel like an eternity had passed between each step. Ignoring my instincts which demand for me to move, to attack, to do something to stop this nerve-racking tension but I ignored it. Instead I forced myself to crouch even lower, making myself smaller, before remaining completely motionless.

After what felt like a lifetime he finally reached the bottom of the stairs. I could see him now, his back facing towards me. All he had to do was to glance over his shoulder and I'd be spotted.

My instincts once again screamed for me to attack, _now_, while he still hasn't seen me, while his back was still turned, but again I forced it down.

Not yet…

I have to wait. Wait just a little while longer, until he was too engrossed in reading the monument to pay attention to what was happening around him. Then, then I'll attack. But not now, for now I had to wait.

I watch as he began to approach the stone monument, moving further away from me with each step he took towards it. When he began to near the monument, and consequently the flames that bracketed it, he was illuminated by the light and for the first time I got a clear view of his features.

Inky black hair, dark grey clothing with his clan emblem on his back. Yes, it was definitely him.

Again I had to fight back the urge to strike.

Not yet…

Finally he stopped moving as he reached his destination. He stood before the tablet, motionless and unmoving, until I finally noticed the slight turning of his head from right to left as began to read.

…Now.

Silent and slow, I took a step forward. Just as I was trained, I made sure to lead with my toes, placing it lightly on the ground, followed by the balls of my feet before shifting my weight forward onto it. Once that was done, I took another step forward. Then another, and another, slowly closing the distance between us.

Ten meters to go. Then it was eight, and he still hasn't notice me. Then five, three, until only two remained. Then finally, I was in striking distance.

I tighten my grip on the kunai, holding it a reverse-grip in my right hand, before I raised it over my left shoulder and lunged forward.

In the end, I must have made a sound or something because he stop his reading, and begun turning around towards me-

-_too late._

My strike was perfect and the kunai landed right where I aimed, piercing the back of his head and sinking almost hilt deep into his skull.

He never even got the chance to see the face of his killer before he died, my strike landing before he could finish turning around. He just collapsed bonelessly on to his front, without making a sound.

He was dead before he even hit the ground.

I stared at the body, feeling oddly calm. All my jitters and nerves were gone, as if they were never there to begin with. I was actually surprised by how calm I was behaving, this was my first kill after all and I had expected to feel something...more. I'm not sure what, just something. But the only thing that I felt other than calmness was the mild feeling of disbelief.

That's it? That was it? Just like that and it's over? I had almost expected something to go wrong, in fact I was all but sure that it would. That I had failed to account for something or someone and the whole thing would fall apart at the last second.

But it hadn't.

Everything had gone according to plan.

It was almost…

…easy

Hell, it _was_ easy. That was ridiculously easy.

Was killing really supposed to be that easy?

Then I laughed.

I don't know why, I just did. Just threw my head back and laughed in that dark room, standing next to the corpse I just murdered. It wasn't due to shock, I knew that much, my hands were steady and my thoughts were too clear for it to be that. Maybe because it was at the realization of how twisted the world must be for killing to be so damn _easy_ that I had to laugh.

Quickly though, I put a stop to it. Now was not the time, I still had work to do. Like making sure that this guy really was dead. While I was pretty sure he was, a kunai to the brain was as dead as you can get, from what I recalled of the show this guy was practically a cockroach when it came surviving things that were supposed to kill him, so I had to make sure.

Careful not to get any of his blood on me, which there was a surprisingly little amount of, I slid my foot under his shoulder and flipped him over onto his back.

Uchiha Sasuke stared up at me with empty dead eyes.

Crouching next to him, I placed my fingers on his throat, searching for a pulse. I found none. Now I was certain. Uchiha Sasuke was dead.

"You know, I'm actually surprised on how well that all worked out." I began speaking to the boy, as if he could somehow hear me through death. "I was so certain that this wasn't going to work. I mean, you main characters are notoriously hard to kill off. You guys always seem to survive the most impossible situations that a part of me found it hard to believe that anything I could do would ever kill any of you. But here we are, me alive and you…" I waved a hand over his corpse, "…dead."

"Well, I guess this just goes to show you, that you're not the main character anymore." I leaned down next to the corpse and whispered into his ear, "I am."

I rose up from my crouch and began pacing. "For a long while I was not sure what I should do. I mean sure, I knew what my goals were and that I should train and grow stronger and all that, if I wanted any chance of achieving them. But that wouldn't have been enough, not with so many forces, factions and players. Just training won't be enough to beat all the monsters and players out there. Madara, Obito, Nagato, Danzo and so on, there is too many to count really. And if I continued as I was, I would end up as nothing more than another chess piece in this board game that they played.

"And there was no way I was ever going to allow that to happen. I am no one's piece.

"So I knew I had to act, to stop being just another piece to be played, step out of the board game and become a player instead. To play the game instead of being played. And with all my knowledge about the future, I knew I could do it. I just needed to decide on how."

I crossed my arms behind me and looked up as I paced. "So I asked myself, when should I act? I knew if I made too great a change that all my knowledge of the future would be worthless, so I had to make it count. At what point can I make the biggest difference for my benefit."

"And then it hit me." I snapped my fingers and pointed at the dead Sasuke. "You. In the future you would become the biggest pain in the ass, to everybody. You would join Akatsuki, become Tobi's lackey and not to mention attempt to commit total genocide in a village filled with innocent people. In short you'll someday become a serious threat. Not just to the leaf or the Elemental Nations, but to me and my goals." I stopped my pacing and smiled down at him. "And that's why I had to stop you now, while you're still weak."

"You see, no matter how dangerous you become in the future, no matter how skilled you grow or how powerful a ninja you'll turn into, that's all in the future. The far distant future, and it has nothing to do with the here and now. Because now, as in right in this moment, you're nothing but a boy. A helpless little child. So before you grow, before the boy becomes the man and a threat, I decided you to nip you in the bud."

"But," I held up a finger, "but, I knew that wasn't as easy as it sounded." I resumed my pacing again, "It is one thing to talk about killing and quite another thing to actually do it. And now while I didn't like you, and I never made a secret of that, a part of me still hesitated over killing you. I mean, could I really go through with it? Could I really kill a kid, a technically innocent little boy just for my own gains? Believe it or not I have never killed anyone before today and I'm not sure I had it in me to go through with it. Not when it came to killing a child at least. But then I remember something." Again I stopped my pacing and leaned over Sasuke, "Something really important."

"I remembered all of the things you did, all of the things you will do if I let you live. I remembered all the people you hurt and killed, all of those whose trust you betrayed. But most importantly, I remember the Valley of the End, where a friend and teammate appeared before you. She came to stop you, for no thoughts of profit or gains, for no other reason than friendship she came to save you from your own darkness, even risking her life to do so."

I smiled at him, it wasn't a pretty thing. "And do you remember what you did? Do you remember what you did to your teammate, your friend, your – and dare I even say it - so called best friend? Do you remember? No. Then here, let me remind you." I raised my foot above him and held ii there for a heartbeat before stomping down on his chest so hard I felt his ribs snap.

"YOU SHOVED A FUCKING CHIDORI THROUGH HER CHEST YOU PRICK! THAT'S WHAT! YOU TORE A FIST-SIZED HOLE IN NARUTO'S CHEST! MY FRIEND'S FREAKING CHEST! DID YOU THINK I'D JUST SIT BACK AND LET YOU GET AWAY WITH IT!" I grinded my foot into his chest, making sure to rub his bones together even though he was dead.

Then the sheer absurdity of what I was doing hit me and I quickly stopped. Taking my foot off Sasuke's chest, I took a step back away from the corpse before turning away and began taking deep calming breaths. Only after a full minute had passed and I was sure I was back in control again did I turned back around to face him.

"And that wasn't the worst of it." I continued pleasantly, as if I hadn't just caved his chest in, "As I distinctly remember you breaking Naruto's neck long before that happened. Right at the start of the fight, when you dive-bombed her straight into the rocky ground. Sure, it wasn't as flashy as the whole Chidori through the chest thing but I remember the event pretty vividly." Walking up to him, I stopped near his head and crouched down.

"And when I remembered that I realized, that yes," I nodded, "I can kill you. I will kill you…and I did. You would have done a whole lot worse to the world at large if I let you live. And let's face it," I raised my hand to his face before patting his cheek condescendingly. "I never did like you anyway." I smirked down at him before standing back up and started pacing again. Something that always helped me think.

"And I knew just when to do it too. I couldn't kill you earlier, not when your family made up the entirety of the Konoha police force. Nor could I wait for later, when you grew strong enough to put up a fight. No, it had to be now. Right now when Konoha was in too much of an uproar over the massacre of one of its most powerful Clans to think about guarding one orphaned child or even notice your missing, and by the time they do, the trail would have long gone cold."

"And the best part is, I didn't have to _do_ anything. Between yourself and your brother, you set everything up for me. You've even given me the perfect murder location." I raised my arms to indicate the room at large. "Look at this place, it's perfect. It's impossible to detect from the outside and, here is the kicker, no one alive in this Village knows about it other than me." I turned to him, "Well, you too I supposed but you're not about to tell anyone about this place anytime soon, are you?"

"I'm going to leave you here." Glancing about me as I began circling the room. "Look around you Sasuke, because this place is going to be your tomb. Your grave. When I walk out of here I'm going to shut the door behind me and never return. No one will ever know you're in here. Hell, no one will even know for sure what happened to you. Did Itachi come back to finish the job? Did you run away? Get kidnapped? Commit suicide? Who knows?" I shrugged, "It's a total mystery."

"And here is the part that I _really _love about the whole thing. Even if they do eventually find out what happened to you, no one, and I mean _no one_ will ever suspect me of killing you. Because I have no _motive_." I laughed. "That's right, even if my alibi, flimsy as it is, falls through no one will ever connect me to your murder. Why? Because why would I do it? For what possible reason would I, an eight year old child, murder you, a classmate that he hasn't spoken to in two years?"

"And then there is the other benefits your death would bring. With you gone, Orochimaru will never attack the leaf, or at least is less likely to do so without the incentive of the Sharingan, which may mean that Sarutobi will survive the end of Chuunin Exams. And then there is of course Itachi. So long as he doesn't have a breakdown over your death, then Itachi will dedicate the rest of his remaining life to protecting the Leaf, because let's face it, now that you're gone that's all he'll have left."

"Hell, what am I saying?" I turned to look at him, "Without you, without Uchiha Sasuke in this story, everything changes. With you gone, the entire future, the story's plotline, all of it gets thrown out the window. Your death will make all my knowledge of the future near worthless. And you know what?" I held my arms open, "I'm just fine with that."

"I could have sat back and done nothing, just stuck with the original plotline. But if I did, I would have been nothing but a puppet to fate, to destiny or whatever you wanted to call it, and I refuse to be anyone's puppet. As if I'd ever allow myself to sit back and play my role as someone's bitch. So instead of dancing to the strings of fate known as 'canon', I'd rather forge my own path, my own story. After all, didn't I already say it?

"This is my story; I'm the main character now. And this tale will no longer be about a lonely little child who dreams of becoming the Hokage, all so that she may one day be acknowledged. Nor is this a tale of an Avenger and his quest for revenge. No, this is the tale of _Hyuuga Hikaru_, the man who will one day obtain the Rinnegan and become a God."

"For you see," I pointed down at him, "what I want is _not_ Nagoto's Rinnegan, not Madara's. No, I have no interest in those fakes. What I want is the real thing, the true Rinnegan. I want _Otsutsuki Kaguya's_ Rinnegan."

I looked up for a moment, lost in my memories, "I have seen her use it Sasuke, I have seen the power she can wield with those eyes and it is a thing of wonder to behold." I turned to look back down at the boy. "I have seen her walk between dimensions as easily as you and I walk through doors, create entire worlds with but a thought, return to the world of the living as if death was nothing more than an inconvenience and create new life with but a flick of her finger.

"I _want_ that power." Even to my own ears, the sheer longing in my voice was frightening.

"I _will_ have that power. One day I will find her, I will reach out to whatever realm or plane of existence that Kaguya lives in and when I do, I will pluck those divine eyes straight out of her skull. And then the Rinnegan will be mine!" A wicked grin graced my face as I turned back to Sasuke.

"And…and…and," Slowly the grin disappeared from my face as I began to process what I had been doing, "and what the hell am I doing talking to a corpse for?" I blinked again before face-palming. "Please someone tell me I did not just monologue my entire plan like some kind of cliché Bond villain to a dead corpse?"

For the next few second I just stood there face palming, before I doubled over in laughter. "_Pfft_-Hahahaha, oh my god that's hilarious. That has got be the most stupidest thing I've ever done." I turned to look to my one corpse audience. "I guess your death must have been a bigger shock to me than I excepted, eh Sasuke? Hahahaha."

When my laughter finally died down, I straighten myself up. I took a moment to check myself for any signs of blood and when I didn't find any, I turned to give Sasuke one final look. "Well, I've spent enough time here with you tonight so I'm about to head back. But before I leave let me tell you this one final thing, for it will be the last thing you'll ever hear Uchiha Sasuke." My smile dropped from my lips and I stared down at him with dead eyes, "Good bye."

Then I turned and left, never once looking back.

That was the last time I ever saw Sasuke.

Placing my foot at the foot of the staircase, I slowly began my climb upward. It was done; I have finally taken my first step towards my goal. The die has been cast and can no longer be taken back; I was in for keeps now.

_Good. _

I took my second and third step up the stairs, leaving the light of the flames that illumined the room behind me, ascending to the darkness above me, where the entrance to the Shrine lay.

_Though no one may know it yet, a new player had stepped up to play this game. And I was playing for keeps._

A fourth and fifth step up the stairs took me further away from the light.

_And to all you hidden players who hide in the shadows, Pain, Obito, Madara, Kaguya, I have this to tell you._

_You'll lose._

_This board game is no longer yours, it's mine. The moment I had entered, all your destines, all of your fates were ruined. Not God, not fate, not even Kishimoto himself will be able to save you from me_.

I finally step through the door and entered the shrine, no longer able to see the light of the room I left behind.

_ I will win. I will beat you all. So come! Monsters of this world, come! For I challenge you. There is a new monster that roams the world and I will hunt down and kill every single last one of you. And when that day comes, I will pile up your bleeding corpses and use them to ascend to Godhood_.

_For on that day –_

_ The Rinnegan will be mine!_

Turning in place, I looked down at the open trap door beside my feet, the one that lead to concealed room where the body of my first kill lay hidden.

_That's one down. One enemy I've removed from the board game._

_ I wonder, how many more will I kill before this is all over?_

The answer immediately came to me unbidden.

_As many as it takes._

Then I kicked the door shut, sealing the room and the body behind me behind forever.

* * *

_**End of Arc 1: Birth of a Monster**_

**Author's Notes.**

**Ok, a show of hands. How many of you saw that coming?**

** I promise you a plot twist, and hopefully I delivered.**

** What is a monster? **

** A monster is not someone that is unfeeling, uncaring. No, In fact it's quite the opposite. A monster, a true monster, is someone who cares, someone who can laugh and cries alongside you even as he slits your throat. A monster is not something that is necessarily evil, in fact the best kind aren't. They just have to be horrifying.**

** But you know what? I love monster, especially the human kind. I find them fascinating to read about and fun as hell to write about them.**

**Then there was that big clue right at the beginning of the chapter.**

** I could keep going about my thoughts behind the chapter for a while so I'll stop right here.**

** The first arc of the story had come and gone. So that's it for now, I'm nervous as hell about how this chapter and the entire arc would be taken so be sure tell me what you thought about it. What do you think of Hikaru? Like him? Hate him? Sasuke's Fate? And everyone else? I'm dying to know so I'd appreciate any comments.**

** And thanks for reading, oh and I'm already plotting out arc two so look forward for it.**


	4. Chapter 4

**_Chapter 4 : The New Team 7_**

* * *

_ "Honored Ancestor."_

_Oh, it's you again._

The man smiled in welcome, not rising from his seat on the boulder. Tiny droplets of water filled the air, sprayed out from the tiny waterfall only a short distance away. The stream that it birthed stretched towards us, than past us, snaking around the boulder he rested on.

One of his feet dangled off the boulder's edge, his toes just brushing the river's surface, sending ripples running in the water, while his other leg lay folded up to his chest, his arms wrapping around it and a cheek resting on its knee.

_You've been showing up a lot more often lately, haven't you?_

He quirked an eyebrow at me, his red-eyes dancing with amusement, "Ah, forgive me Honored Ancestor but I fear you are mistaken. For you see, it is not I that has been appearing before you, but it is _you_ that have been appearing before me."

He waved a hand, indicating the green valley that stretched farther than the eye could see, "For this is my home, my sanctuary and alas, also my prison. Even were I to wish for it, I am unable to leave this place. Thus our meetings can only occur here, when you come to me."

_Is that so?_

"It is so." He nodded, smiling. "Though please do not believe I have been displeased with the matter, for your visits have been a source of great pleasure to me, and it is something that I have begun to look forward to over the years. For as you can see," He raised his head off his knee and looked around, "none live here other than my humble self. And while there was a time I considered solitude a blessing, too much of it can easily turn it into a burden."

_You have no one else to talk to?_

"I would not say that," He shook his head, sending the tips of his hair swaying, "but the number who are few indeed. Other than my reincarnations, you have been my only visitor in four hundred years. There are not many that can reach this place, it is an existence untouched by time and space, a plane beyond the reach of most mortal men. Though there do exist a special few who are indeed capable of reaching this paradise, and indeed, they have tried to several times in the past, but I have denied them entry every time. For I find their presence-" For a heartbeat his crimson eyes darkened, burning with barely restrained hatred, before it was gone, as if it were never there, instantly replaced with his usual serine expression. The entire thing was over and done so quickly that I almost believed I had imagined it, "most unwelcome."

…_I see…Now that I think about it, who are you anyway?_

_It's been years since we first met but I still haven't learned your name._

Lifting his head off his knee, he shot me a bemused look, "Truly? Honored Ancestor, I believe I have told you my name several times already." The edge of his lips quirked up and he cocked his head, "Could it be that you have simply forgotten?" He sounded more amused than offended.

"Very well," Moving with all of his usual grace, the man rose up to his feet. He took a moment to straighten his slightly ruffled clothing before turning to face me.

When he bowed towards me, he did so with all the elegance and formality you'd expect to see from an aristocrat. It was as if we were meeting in a royal palace rather than the middle of nowhere. "Allow me the honor of reintroducing myself to you once again Honored Ancestor."

He rose up from his bow and shot me an impish smile, one that sent another wave of nostalgia washing over me. "I am your direct descendant, the first born son of Otsutsuki Hagoromo, he who is the Sage of Six path, and his former heir. I am the founder of the Uchiha Clan, the first wielder of the Mangekyo Sharingan and-

"-My name," He gave me another slight bow, "is _Otsutsuki Indra_. And it is truly a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Honored Ancestor."

* * *

My eyes snapped open, and I found myself staring up at my bedroom's ceiling.

A thousand and one thoughts raced through my brain, all clamoring for attention. My emotions were everywhere, jumping from place to place, but they could be pretty much summed up in one word.

"…Shit." I blurted.

What the hell was I doing dreaming about bloody Indra for? I had been meeting him off and on for the last four years but I never realized who he was. He was freaking Indra. The guy who started a four century war all because he wasn't his daddy's little favorite any more. Hell, to think I was actually beginning to like the guy.

Oh no! Oh god no, please don't tell me I'm his reincarnation? I thought all that reincarnated shit that happened near the end was a bunch of BS Kishimoto pulled out of his ass in the last second. Damn it! How the hell was I supposed to know he was being serious?

Wait, wait just a second, didn't Indra say I was the only one _other_ than his reincarnations to visit him? Then that means I'm not his reincarnation. Oh thank god for minor miracles. That means I don't have to get caught up with Indra-Asura nonsense. I wanted nothing to do with the whole sibling feud that they have been bitching on about for the last few centuries. Really, you two have killed each other several times already, give it a rest. No one cares anymore.

But if I wasn't his reincarnation, then what the hell was Indra doing showing up in my dreams for? Not to mention the whole 'Honored Ancestor' thing he keeps calling me. What was up with that?

And why was he so nice to me? Wasn't Sasuke supposed to be this generation's reincarnation of Indra? Doesn't that basically mean I offed the guy? Shouldn't he be kind of pissed at me for that?

_Ahhh~~~~~!_ You know what? Fuck it. This is far too much crazy for me to deal with so early in the morning. I'll think it over later, like after I had some food and coffee in me. It's not like I'm under any time limit, they guy had been haunting my dreams for years now. If he was planning to do something to me he would have done it but now, so I should be safe for a while yet.

I pushed my blanket off me and sat up on my bed, rubbing the remainder of the sleep from my eyes. Well, at least I know I've got the craziest part of my day over and done with. There is no way anything can happen that will top that.

"Hikaru, save me!" My bedroom door slid open with a bang, revealing a frantic looking Naruto. Her long blonde hair was in a tangled mess and her breaths came out in short panicked pants, while her eyes, wide with panic, darted around the room until they landed on me. "Your mother is trying to molest me. Help!"

…Seems I spoke too soon.

I just shot Naruto a deadpanned look, "This is too early in the morning to deal with this much crazy."

Naruto opened her mouth to say something, but before she could utter a word she was attack as a figure leapt from behind her.

"Ninja-secret assassination technique – Juuken strike!" Hanabi called out as she delivered a deadly blow to the side of Naruto's neck – who promptly burst into a cloud of smoke, revealing her to be a clone.

Hanabi landed lightly on her feet before she clenched both of her hands before her and cheered "Yes! Assassination successful, mission complete!"

…Like I said, far too much crazy.

"Hanabi," though my voice sounded exasperated, I couldn't quite stop an amused smile from forming on my lips. "How many times must I tell you not to call out your attacks when you're trying to ambush someone? You'll give yourself away."

"Eh?" Hanabi blinked owlishly, "But-but Nii-sama, Neji does it all the time and he looks _so _cool when he does." She swung her arms around in her excitement. "He always says that one's fire of youth would only burn ever brighter when you call out an attack."

Ah yes, Neji.

To think it possible for someone to change so much. Whatever coolness factor Neji still had left was completely lost after he ended up in Team Guy. Mentally, I sent a prayer to the alternate Neji and hoped that he would never find out how his current self-turned out. The guy may just die from shame.

Uncle Hizashi, I'm sorry to say this, but the world would have been a far better place if you'd only dropped dead years ago.

Giving the puppy-eyed Hanabi one last glance, I finally sighed and decided to drop the matter. She was only eight, in four more years she'll be a Genin, I should let her have her fun while she still can. Hopefully this is all just a stage that she'll eventually grow out of.

"So," Pushing myself off my bed, I raised my arms and stretched, "What's all this about Mom molesting Naruto?"

Hanabi's eye widened with excitement and she held a hand up to her lips as she failed to hold back a laugh. "Oh, Nii-sama, you have to see this! Come quick!"

She reached forward and grabbed my hand in both of hers before she began leading me out of the room.

"What's going on?" I asked.

Hanabi just flashed me a mischievous smile, "Wait, You'll see."

Shrugging I allowed myself to be pulled out of my room and down the corridor. Hanabi, in her excitement, was able to outpace me despite my longer strides and kept tugging on my hand to walk faster.

As we rounded a corner, one of the side doors in the opposite end of the corridor slid open and out walked a pair of female servants, each holding a pile of folded cloths in their arms.

Hanabi, catching sight of them, quickly let go of my hand and slowed her pace down and dropped back until she ended up walking side-by-side with me. Hanabi then straighten her back, held her head high and folded her hands before her as her face adopted a calm and serene expression.

All in all, she looked dignified, the very image of a noble daughter to a respected Clan.

As one of the maids shut the door they had just vacated behind her, they turned and began walking down the corridor in our direction. The next few seconds were silent as the distance between us slowly closed, and just as we were about to pass each other by, the servants gave us a brief bow, which we returned, neither of us breaking our pace.

The silence remain for a while longer, at least until the servants reached the end of the corridor and rounded the corner we had just came from, at which point Hanabi dropped the act and her excited grin came back in full force. She didn't hesitate to snatch my hand up again and resumed dragging me to our destination, calling out to me to hurry.

…And this is why my little sister is the cutest thing in the whole wide world. It's official – I'm only ever going to have daughters from now on. Girls are so much better than boys.

What Hanabi failed to notice however, and which I was only able to catch from the edge of my eyes because I was looking for it, was the servants sticking their heads back around the corner. They glanced at the now energetic Hanabi, turned to look at each other before breaking out in silent snickers and returning back to their work.

Really, I may have been the most respected child in the Clan but Hanabi was by and large the most beloved. Unlike me, Hanabi actually takes her image as the daughter to the Clan Head seriously and tries so hard to appear noble and dignified, which everyone finds adorable to watch when she tries to act so grown up.

The entire household silently agreed to support the little tyke in her efforts and all pretended to take her actions seriously, all the while making sure to look the other way whenever she slips up. Truly, the Hyuugas are wise to acknowledge the cuteness of my little sister.

"We're here!" Hanabi release my hand and rushed the last few steps to the sliding door of my parent's bedroom, before turning around and smirking mischievously at me, "Get ready to be surprised Nii-sama."

Then she turned around and slid the door open with a flourish, revealing-

"Hikaru! Help Me!" Naruto desperately called for help, her eyes brightening with hope when she caught sight of me, even as she continued her futile effort to struggle free. "She won't let go!"

The sight before me was so unusual that it took me a few seconds to process what was happening. Then I laughed. I couldn't help it, what I was seeing was so unexpected and ridiculous that couldn't help but double over in laughter.

"Hikaru," Naruto's voice was thick with betrayal, "Stop laughing and help me!"

"Ok, ok," I somehow managed to squeeze out between breathes as my laughter tickled down, though I couldn't keep the smile off my face. "Mom, I think you'd had your share of Naruto for one day. Please let her go now."

"Never my child," My mother instantly denied as she continued to rub her cheeks against Naruto's. "Never."

My mother, Hyuuga Mio, was currently seated on the edge of her bed, with Naruto placed down firmly between her legs. My mum had one arm wrapped around the blonde's waist while her other hand was placed on the side of Naruto's face, and was using it to push Naruto's face into hers, all so that she could snuggle her cheek against Naruto.

Unlike her clone, who had been dressed up in her usual orange and black track suit, Naruto was wrapped up in a light yellow Kimono with orange colored petals decorating its surface, a matching colored obi tied around her waist. Her hair was done up in French braids and, while I could barely see it, she was wearing a very light layer of make-up.

The only thing that ruined the image of the traditional high class lady was the increasingly frustrated expression Naruto was sporting as she tried and failed to fight her way out of my mother's hold. Finally giving up, Naruto slumped in my mother's arms, resigned to her fate before she tilted her face up to look at me, her upturned blue eyes wet with unshed tears.

"Hikaru~," Naruto hiccuped, her eyes threatening to spill any second, "She-she took off my clothes and undressed me and… and…and I-I think I've been molested." Another hiccup, "Does this mean I can't be a bride anymore?"

Unfortunately for Naruto, my mother had always had a thing for sad little animals, and could never resist trying to adopt any tiny injured strays that happened to catch her eye on the way home. So instead of helping her, her big teary eyes and sad face just made her that much adorable to my mother, and only helped to seal her fate.

"Kyaa~~ that's it, I can't take it anymore." Mio glomped onto Naruto even tighter before she shot me a beaming smile, "Hikaru, marry this child! I want her as a second daughter right now."

"What!" Naruto looked up to my mother in a flustered panic, "But-But Mio-san I-"

But my mother quickly cut her off, "Now, now, no need to call me Mio-san. Call me Okaa-sama, no, even just Okaa-chan will be fine." She ordered before returning to her nuzzling of Naruto.

"But-" Naruto turned her pleading eyes on me and mouthed 'help'.

"Ok, that's enough mother." I clapped my hands twice, "You've run out of your Naruto time for the day, time to let her go."

Instead of behaving like a reasonable adult that she was supposed to be, my mother pouted like a three year old instead. "No, she's just too cute. I'll never let her go." Then shut her eyes and buried her face into Naruto's hair

Rolling my eyes, I walked up to a nearby table, muttering under my breath about who was supposed to be the parent and who the child in this relationship. Picking up the spray bottle that was placed on the table, the one that my mum used to water her plant, I turned back to my mother and sprayed her on the face.

"Hikaru!" She yelped, dropping Naruto in effort to cover her face. Naruto, knowing a chance when she sees it, scrambled away from my mother as fast as she could move before hiding behind me.

"There," Setting the spray bottle back down on the table, "have you finally learnt your lesson? If you keep insisting on acting like a clingy cat, I'd have to treat you like one."

Hanabi, who had been standing off to one side and enjoying the show, just dropped to the floor in a fit of laughter. Well, I'm glad at least one of us is enjoying themselves.

"But Hikaru-" The thirty five year old woman started to whine, reminding me of a petulant child who just had her favorite toy taken away.

"No buts." I told her, "Neither Naruto or me have time to mess around today. They're going to be announcing our team assignment at the Academy, and neither of us can afford to be late."

"That's right," Hanabi perked up from where she was still lying in a heap down on the floor, "Are you and Naru-Nee going to end up in the same team Nii-sama?"

I smiled at her, "We won't know for certain until we get there, but seeing as we were both ranked at the top of our year, we are pretty much guaranteed to be teamed up."

It wasn't easy, but somehow we managed to boost up Naruto's grades enough for her to beat out the rest of the girls. That's not to say Naruto was a bad Ninja or anything, far from it. It's just that she wasn't a well-rounded one, and that was the crux of the problem.

To graduate the Academy, all prospective Genin are put through a series of exam, ranging from a broad range of different categories. There were the obvious ones such as taijutsu, ninjutsu and genjutsu. Then there were things like stealth, tracking, general knowledge, clones, first-aid and information gathering.

When it came to taijutsu or stealth, Naruto had it in the bag. She was so far ahead of the rest of the girls in hand-to-hand combat that I couldn't help but pity them during sparring practice. I remember all too well how powerful her punches were when we first met all those years ago, and she had only grown stronger since then.

I was never quite certain if it was due to her Uzumaki heritage, her status as jinchuuriki or a combination of both, but the sheer amount of raw physical power Naruto held in her body was extraordinary. The only way I could match her in strength was by carefully controlling the timing and flow of chakra in my muscles in order to draw out their maximum potential. But Naruto doesn't need to do that, she has so much chakra coursing through her veins that all she has to do was _swing_, and her punches would be just as devastating as mine, if not more.

So no, it was not the taijutsu exam but the genjutsu and chakra control exams that had us sweating buckets. To say she was terrible at them would be putting it mildly. If Naruto doesn't outright flunk those exams I would consider it a win.

The top male and female Genin of the year is determined by averaging the scores from all the exams. Which meant that if you bombed two or three exams badly enough, you'd be out of the running even if you aced several others. So if Naruto ever wanted to end up in the same team as me, which was something she really wanted, she needed to find a way to boost her grades up and fast.

We gave up on chakra control straight from the start. If Naruto still hasn't gotten it down after all these years, then there was no way she would make it in time for the exam. Instead we focused on her other weak points, clones and general knowledge.

And I already knew the perfect solution to both those problems.

_Shadow Clones._

Turned out I was only half right.

Getting my hands on the Shadow Clone technique was easy. There was a copy of it in the Hyuuga Clan Library. And dear god did I love that library; it practically had a scroll on almost every jutsu and fighting style in existence. If it didn't teach you how to learn the jutsu, then it taught you how to counter it, detailing all the strengths, limits and possible weakness it may have.

The Uchiha were not the only Clan that stole other people techniques, they were just the only ones who were keen on advertising that fact. I wouldn't be surprised if every major Clan in Konoha had their own version of this place.

It's been years since I was granted access to all but the most dangerous scrolls in the library, and fortunately for us the scroll that taught the Shadow Clone jutsu was not one of the forbidden few.

The first hurdle we ran into came when we tried to learn the jutsu. You know how Naruto happened to learn how to make a Shadow Clone in just a few short hours. Yeah, I'm officially calling BS on that. Jutsu are _hard _to learn. They are not the kind of thing you learn over an afternoon or during your weekend off. They were stupidly complex things than could easily end up killing you if make as much as a single mistake.

There was a reason the Academy refuses to teach elemental jutsu to their students until they became Genin. Can you imagine how easy it would be for children to electrocute themselves if they tried using a lightning technique, or drown by flooding their own lungs with water by casting an incorrect water jutsu?

The only Clan who regularly teach their children elemental jutsu are the Uchiha, and that's only because every one of their kids are born with an unusually strong fire affinity. Even then they make sure to only train their kids over a lake. And still some poor kid ends up burning themselves to death every decade or so.

And even when you finally learn how to cast a jutsu, your work isn't finished. You have to keep practicing it again and again until you master it so well it becomes a reflex. What use was a jutsu in a fight if you need to stop and think about to cast it?

One of the reasons why I was considered a genius by my clan was due to the sheer speed I could learn and master a jutsu. With my mastery over the Byakugan I can _see _the correct way the chakra should flow to make a jutsu work, that combined with my precise chakra control along with my understanding of chakra theory that I've accumulated over my years of studying allowed me to learn new chakra techniques in a fraction of the time it took anyone else my age.

Yet even with all my advantages I needed two whole weeks to learn the Shadow Clone technique, _two weeks._ I did nothing but work on the technique the entire time, even going as far to skipping the academy, and it still took me a fortnight to learn. Then I needed an additional week where I did nothing but create Shadow Clones until I could finally make them without thinking, so I could use them in a fight if needed.

By the end of it I could make two or three clones in a blink – anymore and my chakra levels would drop too low for me to be of any real use in combat.

Poor Naruto needed almost an entire month of non-stop work until she figured it out, and that was with me helping her. Still, by end of it we found ourselves standing in a courtyard filled to brim with clones of the blonde…then my mum walked in on us.

I swear I have never seen my mother happier than on that day. Faster than I could blink, she snatched up half a dozen clones and dragged them to her room, where she started dressing them up like dolls, muttering all the while about 'all the Narutos she could ever want'.

Anyway, though it turned out to be far harder than either of us expected it to be, we finally learned a clone technique that would allow us to pass that particular exam with flying colors.

Then we ran into our second hurdle.

My purpose for learning the Shadow Clone technique was twofold, get Naruto to pass the clone test, and use the Shadow Clones to help Naruto study. With their ability to transfer their memories, Shadow Clones would allow Naruto to squeeze in a month worth of studying in a single day. It would have worked too, if not for just one tiny little problem. You know that whole memory thing that the Shadow Clones are famed for?

Yeah, that was bullshit too.

Have you ever wondered why Naruto was the _only_ person to use Shadow Clones on a regular basis, despite its apparent usefulness? Why didn't everyone else us it to train like she did when she mastered her wind affinity? I mean sure, no one but Naruto could create a hundred clones a pop but surely a Jonin could make a couple of clones to help them train. That alone would triple their training speed.

Or why wouldn't anyone use Shadow Clones to help them at work? Can you imagine how fast you can get all your paperwork done if you had three versions of yourself to help? Dear lord, the sheer possibilities were endless, yet no one seemed to want to use the Shadow Clones at all.

Do you want to know why?

_That's because Shadow Clones don't work that way!_

If I could, I would reach out through time and space and strangle Kishimoto for screwing with me. I spent a whole month looking forward to all the wonders I could do with my clones, only to find out that no, shadow clones were not the hax that I thought it to be.

The Shadow Clones worked nothing like the Anime. The original purpose of the Shadow Clone was to help us spy on enemies. A ninja would send his clone into enemy territory, were the clone would gather as much intel as possible before popping and transferring his knowledge back to the user, all without risking the life of the Ninja.

So while yes, a clone's memory does in fact transfer to the host, his _skills _does not. You remember everything they have seen and done, but only in the same way you remember what a character in a movie did. It was like watching television or reading a book rather than re-experiencing the memories yourself. The memories also had the tendency to fade over time, almost like a dream. Which makes sense I suppose, the human brain was simply not designed to download and store memories as if it were some kind of computer.

Really, the entire Shadow Clone didn't seem to be worth it when you take into account the amount of time and effort I poured into it. The only real upside was that to Naruto, with her near endless supply of Chakra, it really was an invaluable tool.

Ah, live and learn I guess. Still, note to self, when I finally get the Rinnegan and achieve godhood, I must find a way to get back to my original dimension, find Kishimoto, then kick him in the nuts. Twice.

In the end we had no choice. We both wanted to end up in the same team together and we knew that the best way to make it happen was if Naruto got the top score from among the girls, so we decided to buckle down, pull up our sleeves and do it the old fashion way. Cramming.

For the last two months we filled Naruto's brain with so much academic facts that she started to sleep talk about it. And in the end it was all worth it. Naruto didn't get the top score among the girls in academics, no that honor went to Haruno Sakura, but she managed to squeeze in a high enough score to boost her average enough to make her the Kunoichi of the year.

"I don't want to be the bearer of bad news my child," My mother gave me a concerned look, "but you shouldn't get your hopes up too much. While it _is_ tradition to pair up the top boy and top girl together, it is not a rule. They have made exceptions in the past."

"And that's why I made sure ask grandfather for help." I answered with a grin. I wasn't stupid enough to risk put all my eggs in one basket.

"Of course you did." My mother shook her head with exasperation. "I swear you have that man so wrapped around your little finger he'd do anything you'd ask of him." Then she snickered as something occurred to her.

Mio looked left and right as if to make sure the coast is clear, before she leaned towards us and began speaking in a false whisper, "Don't tell your father I said this, but Hiashi always gets a little bit jealous when he sees how well Takehiko treats you."

In his youth my grandfather, Hyuuga Takehiko, was a harsh man, respected and feared in equal measures. During the time he ruled as the Head of the Clan he was known to be a fair leader but also an unforgiving one, expecting only the best from both himself and others. From what I heard, Takehiko was especially strict with both Hiashi and Hizashi during their childhood, and refused to show them any leniency even though they were his sons. On the contrary, he expected them to hold themselves up to higher standard _because_ they were his sons.

But no one would believe that if they looked at him now.

Ever since his retirement, my grandfather has turned to an old softy, and would use every opportunity he could to try and spoil Hanabi and me. The old geezer was especially fond of me, bragging and showing me off to his old friends and war buddies every chance he could.

When I asked him if he could help make sure that me and Naruto ended up in the same team, he just thumped his chest and told me to leave it to him – then winked before slipping me a handful of candy along with some pocket money.

"Why is father jealous, does he want some of the candy that grandpa keeps giving us?" Hanabi tilted her head in confusion. "If he does, than he should just ask me. I'd be happy to share some with him."

My mother burst out laughing, "Yes sweetheart, that's exactly what you should do." She reached out and snatched Hanabi up in her arms and began cuddling her like she had with Naruto. "I'm sure your father would be delighted if you offered to share your sweets with him."

Speaking of Naruto, "And you," I turned around to the girl who was still hiding behind me and flicked her on the forehead. "Instead of calling for help why didn't you just escape on your own?"

My mother was just an ordinary civilian. And while she knew how to access her chakra, something all Hyuuga are taught to they could use their eyes, she had no ninja training what so ever. There was no way she had the strength to hold Naruto back if she was really trying to escape.

"But-But Hikaru…I…" Naruto whined as she rubbed her forehead before she awkwardly drifted off and looked away, refusing to meet my eyes.

Seeing her act like this I just sighed and patted her head fondly. "Yeah. I know."

Naruto had always had a weak spot against my mother. Right from their very first meeting Naruto could do nothing but stand in shock as my mum snatched her up without any warning and began gushing about how adorable she was.

I was never sure if she liked all the attention Mio kept showering her with or if she was simply overwhelmed by it, but Naruto could never go against any of my mother's wishes.

Mio is the reason why Naruto never misbehaves when she comes over.

After the first time Naruto tried to prank someone in the compound, she never tried again, not after the sad disappointed look Mio gave her. My mother has Naruto wrapped around her little finger and does not even realize it.

"Anyway," I looked down at myself and the sleepwear I still haven't changed out of. "I need to get dressed if I don't want to end up late meeting our new Sensei and other team member."

Mio stopped snuggling Hanabi and looked up, "Do you know who your third team member is going to be or your Sensei?"

"While I'm not a hundred percent certain, I have feeling that our Sensei is going to be Hatake Kakashi."

"The former Anbu Captain?" My mom looked startled. Kakashi's reputation was so well known that almost everyone in Konoha have heard his name. "What makes you think that?"

"Oh nothing. Just a gut feeling." I smiled at her, trying very hard not to let my frustration bleed through.

While we had never met face to face yet, that hasn't stop me from learning firsthand just how much of a bastard Kakashi could be. I did not know if it was due to his unique childhood and upbringing but despite how young I appeared to be, the guy had no qualms about messing with my head.

His latest efforts in tormenting me started only a few short weeks ago, when I began to notice a change in his routine. Normally Kakashi always brings a copy of his beloved Icha Icha series to read over during guard duty, but this time when he reached into his side-pouch he pulled out a completely different book. It was a guide book for beginner teachers.

At first I was more than happy to chalk up the entire matter as his way of telling me that he was going end up as our Sensei, and went back to ignoring him. It wasn't like I didn't see this coming after all. It was only when I began taking a closer look at the titles of the books he was reading that I began to worry.

The book titles ranged from '_How to be a Teacher from Hell_' to '_Spare the rod, Spoil the child – A Teacher's guide to discipline_' to '_Ass Kicking – the best way to earn your student' respect' _to '_Pain – the more you hurt them now, the more they'll thank you later_' to, and I swear I'm not making this up, '_The many similarities of training dogs and training children'_.

Since the prick seemed to somehow know whenever I was watching him, I couldn't tell if he was seriously reading those books or if he was just doing it to mess with me, but either way I had the feeling that the next several months training under him were going to suck.

Giving my head a quick shake, I tried to dispel the thoughts of my insane new Sensei from my mind, "As for our third team member," I shrugged, "I don't know. Most likely it's whoever scores the worst; they tend to group up the dead last with the top two to balance the team out. But your guess is as good as mine for who that could be. Not that it really matters, it's not like we have any particularly bad students in our class. As long as we don't end up with someone whose completely insane I'll be satisfied."

"Insane?" Mio gave me a perplexed look, "My son, aren't you worrying yourself over nothing? I don't think they would ever let anyone 'completely insane' to enroll into the Academy. Really, what are the chances of you ending up with someone like that?"

Just as I was about to answer, I was interrupted by the sounds of three distinct yells coming from outside the compound wall, which ironically answered her question better than I ever could.

"Oh Praise the Fires of Youth."

"YOOOOUUUUUUTH~~~~~~~~!"

"WHY IS EVERY SINGLE ONE OF MY TEAMMATES INSANE?"

…

"You'd be surprised." I deadpanned to my mother and silently sent a quick prayer for poor Tenten's sanity. Then I spun around and left the room, "And now I better get back and change, I'm going to have to skip breakfast as it is if I want to make it on time."

"Ah, wait Hikaru," Naruto glance at my mother, who her arms open for a hug, before rushing out of the room. "Don't leave me alone with her!"

Naruto slammed the door behind her before hurrying after me, only slowing down when she reached closed enough to snatch up my hand.

"Really," I rolled my eyes at the girl. Ignoring the way she clung onto my hand, having long gotten used to it. "How are you supposed to call yourself a Genin if my own civilian mother can send you running?"

Naruto had always been a physically affectionate person. Hugs, holding hands, clinging to my back – she loved those kind of things and couldn't seem to get enough of it. These days she won't hesitate to make use of any opportunity to sneak a hug in.

She wasn't like that in the beginning. I still remember the first she tried to hold my hand. It was almost like watching a cat trying to sneak up on its prey, slow and cautious; as if she were afraid I'd yank my hand away at the last minute. Then more enthusiastically once she became more sure of herself, until she began to disregard any form of the word personal space and just glomped me whenever she felt like it.

Once she even tried to glomp me, when she spotted me walking by her apartment. And by that I meant she was _inside_ her apartment, which was up in the 7th floor, and she saw me crossing the street through her window. And of course since this was Naruto we were talking about, it did nothing to deter her from trying to glomp me.

I only realized what was happening when I looked up and found Naruto falling from the sky with her arms held wide open, yelling at me to catch her. And being the reasonable person that I was, I naturally ignored her request, side-stepped out of the way and watched her tear through the side walk.

What? Did you think I would try to catch her? Do you know how much force people can generate when they fall off a building? She'd have crushed me like a pancake. Besides, she was fine, a fall like that barely even bruised her, I knew better than anyone how ridiculously tough Naruto's body could be. The side-walk on the other hand wasn't anywhere near as tough. The poor thing had a Naruto-shaped hole in it for weeks.

Sometimes I wondered if I was a sadist because that memory had me breaking out in laughter for weeks.

Naruto blushed, her cheeks reddening, "But I can't help it. Your mum is just so different from the rest of your family that I just don't know how to deal with her."

"That's true I suppose." I nodded, there was no denying that. Mom was the black sheep of the Hyuugas alright. Then I smirked at the blonde when I noticed something. "You do realize that you're going to have to go back don't you." I looked pointedly down at the Kimono that Naruto was still wearing, "My mother still has your clothes."

Yup, that confirms it; I definitely was a sadist, because I could not help but find the look of stunned horror that slowly dawned on Naruto's face almost heartwarming.

* * *

"Alright, quiet down."

The classroom door slid open and in walked Iruka, clipboard in hand. Walking up to the podium at the front of the room, he turned to face the class. He said nothing at first, just took a moment to look from face to face, wearing a proud smile. "From this day forth, you are no longer students, but Ninja. Nor are you children any longer. As Genin you are now officially part of Konoha's military and are hereby granted all the rights and responsibility of a fully grown adult, no matter what your age may be."

Iruka waited for the excited whispers that sprung up at his words to quiet down before he carried on. "While there may be many benefits to being a Genin, there are also downsides. As adults in the eyes of the law, you can no longer get away with actions that you may have been able to in the past, not without serious consequences." His eyes pointedly lingered on Naruto, who just let out an awkward laugh and smiled sheepishly in return. Iruka sighed before continuing.

"I will now announce your group assignment." He held up the list, "All of these teams have been handpicked by the Hokage himself and are not negotiable. So if you have any complaints be sure to take it up with him." He looked around the room to make sure everyone understood before he coughed into his fist and began reading out the teams.

"Team 1, Assigned to the Jonin-"

I blocked out the rest of his words in favor of examining the rest of the class, it's not like Iruka had anything important to say until he reached team 7 and beyond. A quick count around the room gave me the number of Genin that would be assigned their own Jonin instructor.

Only twenty seven huh? That was less than 7% of the four hundred and forty two students that enrolled into the Academy with us. It wasn't that the other children dropped out, most of them were actually graduating today, rather the others simply haven't proven themselves worthy of their own Jonin instructors.

Jonin are rare. They are the very best that Konoha had to offer, its elites, and they made up only small fraction of its ninjas. There is simply no way that they could assign one to every group of Genin that make it out of the Academy. Only the top of the crop ever get their own Jonin instructor. Most are either assigned to Chuunin instead while others are sent over to the Medical or Research division for further specialized training.

The Academy began to divide us up within our very first year, and they continued to separate us even further every year after. It was not grades alone that determined which group you got assigned to, but your overall potential. Things such as intelligence, bloodlines, skills, chakra and more are taken into account. Which explained how Naruto ended up in this group in the canon.

I glanced over to my left where the blonde in question was fidgeting in her seat as she anxiously waited for our teams to be announced. Even if Naruto ended up as the dead last she would have still made it into this group. Her status as a Jinchuuriki along with her insane chakra capacity would have all but guaranteed it. They would have been stupid to waste such potential no matter what her grades had been.

I spared one more look around the room and spotted the rest of the famed 'Konoha 11'.

Behind us Choji was, as usual, enjoying a pack of chips he had somehow managed to sneak into class. While next to him the lazy Nara, Shikamaru, was trying to get in a few extra minutes of sleep. Down to one side of the room sat Shino, entirely on his own, though going by the constant buzzing noise that came from his jacket that statement might not be entirely accurate.

Akamaru let out an eager bark from his seat on top of his partner's head, while Kiba lounged on his chair, his crossed legs set on the desk in front of him. Off to the back of the room were Ino and Sakura, the happy pair whispering excitedly to each other about something.

"Team 7," I snapped my attention back to the present as Iruka finally reached to the important part, "are assigned to the Jonin Hatake Kakashi, and will consist of Hyuuga Hikaru, Uzumaki Naruto-"

"HELL YEAH!" Naruto leapt up from her seat and cheered before turning to me. "Did you hear that Hikaru? We did it, we're in the same team."

I just smiled up in amusement at the ecstatic blonde before pointing towards the front of the class. Naruto turned her head to the direction I was pointing at and found herself staring into the stern visage of an unamused Iruka.

"Ah-ahahaha," Naruto rubbed the back of her head and sunk back into her seat. "Sorry Iruka-sensei."

Iruka just stared at her until he was certain he wasn't going to be interrupted again. "_Ahem_, as I was saying. Team 7 will consist of Hyuuga Hikaru, Uzumaki Naruto and –"

When Iruka announced the last member of our team, the dead last of the class, I blinked in surprise, never expecting it to be him, before slowly a large grin formed on my face. I turned to look at Naruto, only to find her already looking back at me, also sporting a perfect reflection of my grin.

Then as one we both turned in our seats to look behind us, where the final member of team 7 sat.

A pair of tired beady eyes stared back at us, first locking onto my face before jumping to Naruto's. Then their owner shut his eyes and let out a long suffering sigh.

"…Troublesome."

* * *

***chapter end***

**Author's Notes: **

**There we have it, the new members of team 7. **

**First I want to thank everyone so much for all the support you've given me in the last chapter - it made me so high with happiness for the entire day and left burning with inspiration afterwards, so thank you all so much.**

**This chapter was shorter than I planned it to be partly because this was such a good place to stop, and partly because the next chapter will have out first real fight scene which I want to take my time writing so I posted this part early so can I give my complete attention on the fight.**

**Not much happen in this chapter, mostly setting the stage for the arc and catching up on the time skip (which meant I had to dump too much info than I was happy but at least I got that out of the way) - but good news is this will be the last time skip for a long while (until way after the Chuunin exam - which I already planned out - there may not be any major time-skips at all). **

**There is a reason why Mio (Hinata's mom was unnamed in the anime so I called her that) is alive instead of death. I plan to reveal it soon but I'm sure some of you can guess why.**

**Oh and here is a fun fact.**

**Hinata in Japanese means 'sunflower' or 'to face the sun' - it suited her because she was the one who was only looking at Naruto, her sun and light.**

**Hikaru in Japanese means 'to shine' or 'light' or 'radiance' - it suits him because in this story _he_ became Naruto's light instead of the opposite way around.**

**Really, in every way Hikaru and Hinata are opposites.**

**That's all for now, thanks for reading and please be sure to leave a review.**


	5. Chapter 5: Bell test

**Chapter 5:**

**What bell test?**

* * *

"Late-late-late, he's late!" Frustration oozed off Naruto like heat from an open flame, as she paced in circles at the front of the classroom, walking from wall to wall like a caged animal. "I haven't even seen our new Sensei yet and I'm already beginning to hate him."

"I don't know." Shikamaru stretched and yawned from his perch on the window, bathing in the sun's rays like a cat. "I kinda like the guy already."

"That's only because he's turning out to be even lazier than you!" She snapped at the napping Nara.

"Exactly." He nodded without a hint of shame. "He is literally the perfect Sensei for me. There is a lot I can learn from a guy who can be-" Shikamaru opened a single eye to glance at the clock, "-two hours late for work and get away with it."

Naruto muttered something rude under her breath before turning to me, "Hey Hikaru! Did you find him yet? What's taking this guy so long to get here?"

My eyes twitched as I tracked Kakashi with my Byakugan from behind my desk, "You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

"Oh come on, how unbelievable could it be. Just tell me why he's late already."

"Fine," I sighed, "He is currently lost on the road of life."

Naruto actually stopped her pacing to stare at me blankly, "…huh?"

I couldn't blame her, even I was having trouble believing what I was seeing, "There is a road in Konoha that's literally called 'life' and he is lost on it. He has been for the last hour."

Silence descended on the room as everyone tried to picture what I had just said.

Shikamaru snickered from his perch. "Yeah, I'm definitely going to like this guy."

"You mean to tell me, that this guy can walk in here any second and tell us the reason he's late is because he got lost on the road of life, and he'd be telling us the truth." Naruto spoke the words slowly, as if she couldn't believe what she was saying. Then a conflicted expression appeared on her face. "I'm…I'm not sure what I should be feeling right now. Should I respect the guy for this well played pranked or be pissed at him for wasting our time?"

"Pissed," I answered, feeling no such conflict, "When it comes to Kakashi, the default response should always be pissed off." My head snapped up as I saw Kakashi finally begin to do something different. "Wait, he's finally off the road. Kakashi is no longer lost on the road of life."

Then I facepalmed as I realized what I just said. Never in my life did I ever expect to string those words together in a single sentence.

Even after a full decade, my childlike wonder over the Byakugan never left. It was something incredible, with it I could see every inch of Konoha, the entire village was within my range of sight. I don't even know where to begin to describe what I was seeing, what's it like to see _everything_.

To say I had a bird's eye view of Konoha would be incorrect, because that would imply that I was only looking in one direction. My Byakugan granted me the ability to see everything in my range of sight from every angle, as if I had an entire 3-D model of Konoha imprinted in my head. The sheer scale of what I could see was almost overwhelming.

Just by focusing I could see my sister in the Academy's training room, two floors below this one, where she was in the middle of a taijutsu spar with Konohamaru _– kick his ass Hanabi_! Another shift of my focus allowed me to spot my mother, where she was tending her flowers in the garden, while my father was watching over her from the porch, a tender smile on his face.

Most Hyuuga had the vision range stretching from as little as 4 Km to as much as 16 Km. The current range was my eyes was a little under 12 km, unimpressive compared to the best but unprecedented for someone at my physical stage of development. Most Hyuuga can only break past the 10 km limit when they were well into puberty. But I was still nowhere near my father's range of 21 Km. Yet it was enough, all of Konoha was within the range of my sight.

Even the other teams were not beyond my limit. I could see team 10 celebrating in the Yakiniku Q restaurant. Choji was scarfing down strips of grilled meat as if he hadn't eaten for years, either not noticing or caring about the look of disgusted Sakura was giving him. While Ino, having long gotten used to her teammates eating manners, was reprimanding Asuma on his smoking habits which, if the cigarette he was current holding between his lips was anything to go by, was sliding of him like water of a duck's back.

Team 8 was still in their training field. Akamaru was scratching and biting his fur like crazy while Kiba was yelling at a stoic Shino about keeping his bugs to himself. Kurenai was off to one side from the boys, where she was caught up in an in-depth discussion about the finer nuances of genjutsu to the third member of their group, a brown haired girl by the name of Yakumo.

Thanks to my familiarity with their chakra signatures, it only took me a handful of seconds to spot them all. Had I not been as familiar with their signatures as I was it could have taken me hours to find them, as I would have been forced to look for them street by street instead of simply allowing myself to be pulled towards their chakra.

If I had to describe it, it was almost like picking out a familiar face from a crowd of strangers.

But the process wasn't perfect. While it was impossible to hide from the Byakugan, you could make it much harder for me to find you. If you suppressed your chakra well enough and hide yourself in a densely populated place like Konoha, it would take me time to pick out your chakra signature from the thousands of others, hours, maybe even days if the city was large enough.

Which was why I knew Kakashi wanted me to find him. His chakra signature had been blazing full force all day, deliberately calling attention to himself.

When the rest of the Genin had been picked up by their Jonin-instructors and Kakashi still hadn't arrived yet, I naturally decided to use my Byakugan to find out what was taking him so long and spotted him almost immediately.

He had been at the Memorial Stone, quietly paying his respects to his fallen comrades. Deciding to give the guy some privacy, I lied and told Naruto that I couldn't find him. We could afford to wait for a bit, it's not like we were in any hurry.

When Kakashi was finished paying his respects about an hour later, he turned and waved at me. Well, technically he was waving at the general direction of the Academy but I had no doubt it was aimed at me. Which was why I knew that when he walked off and gotten himself lost on the road of life he was doing this to fuck with me.

"Really?" Naruto leaned over my desk, eager for information. "Where is he now? Is he finally on his way here?"

I held up a hand. "Give me a moment…Yes. Yes he's currently walking down the main road to the Academy and he should be in reaching here any minute now…and…and…and his turning back around."

"What! Why?" Naruto yelled out in frustration.

"…because a black cat just crossed his path."

* * *

"Sorry I'm late," The silver haired man rubbed the back of his head in faux embarrassment as he sat down on the railing. "I got lost on the road of life."

"We know." I along with Naruto deadpanned as one.

Kakashi didn't seem to mind our unenthusiastic response because he carried on giving excuses. "Then a black cat crossed my path and I had to take the long way round because I didn't want to get unlucky."

"We know." We deadpanned again.

I did not mention how convenient it was that a dog just happened to chase that cat in front of him. And that said dog happened to be a familiar looking, brown colored pug wearing a Konoha forehead protector on its head.

"Then I had to help a little old lady cross the street." Kakashi shamelessly carried on.

"WE KNOW ALREADY!" We snapped and yelled.

We were currently all seated on the rooftop of the Academy. Naruto, Shikamaru and me were on the steps of the staircase while Kakashi sat on the railing before us. It had been four hours since we were assigned our teams and Kakashi had picked us up from the classroom only a couple of minutes ago.

Right after the black cat incident Kakashi had taken the long route around Konoha to reach the Academy, only to stop when he was less than ten minutes away to help a little old lady cross the street…twenty-seven times.

And I don't mean twenty-seven different old ladies, but just the single one. He helped her cross the same street over and over again for a whole hour. I couldn't tell for certain if the lady was insane, bribed or if he had used a genjutsu on the poor thing but they kept it up for the entire hour.

"Well, since this is our first meeting and all," Kakashi shut his single eye and smiled, "let's use this chance to get to know each other bit more. Why don't you all tell me a little about yourselves?"

"What do you want to know?" Naruto asked.

Kakashi shrugged, "How about your likes, dislikes, your dreams of the future and such?"

"Then shouldn't you go first? We've all know each other for years, you're the only stranger here."

"Hmm, good point." He rubbed his chin and nodded, "Well, my name is Hatake Kakashi…I have no desire to tell you my likes and dislikes…Dream for the future…Hmm, and I have a lot of hobbies-"

"You are Hatake Kakashi, also known as the Copy Ninja Kakashi for learning over a thousand jutsu via your implanted Sharingan." Once it became clear that he was up to his usual antics I decided to interrupt him. I had originally planned to let him play his games but after all the crap he already put us through, I had enough. "Graduated the Academy at the age of five to become the youngest Genin since the founding of the Village, only to quickly advance up the ranks and become a Chuunin at six. Eventually you reached the rank of Jonin and joined the Anbu, where again you quickly rose up the ranks to become an Anbu captain at an age when most Shinobi were still Genin."

I took a moment to pause for breath before carrying on, "You were one of the prized students of the Yondaime Hokage, Namikaze Minato, and the son of the fallen hero, Hatake Sakumo, Konoha's White Fang. Despite being well known for your tardiness and fondness for the Icha Icha series, you are still well respected in Konoha and is considered to be the strongest A-Rank Ninja it currently has. And while it is still only rumors, many believe that you, along with Jiraiya and Tsunade of the Sannin, are being considered as a possible successor to the Hokage."

As I spoke, an incredulous look began to slowly grow on Naruto face, replacing the glare that she had been giving Kakashi since his late appearance. Even Shikamaru straightened up from his slouch a bit when he realized how much of a big shot we were currently dealing with.

If Kakashi was at all surprise or upset by my words, he didn't show it. On the contrary, he seemed almost amused, "Maa, maa, aren't you a knowledgeable one." He smiled at me through his mask, "Well, since you seem so eager at giving introductions, why don't you go next?"

"Is there a point?" I shrugged, "Like Naruto said, the three of us have know each other for years and you should have already read all of the reports they have on us."

"Indulge me anyway, think of this as more of an ice breaker than anything." Kakashi ordered.

I sighed. I was hoping we could have skipped the whole thing since it was…well, kind of lame, but by the looks of things he isn't going to change his mind. Better get it over with then.

"My name Hyuuga Hikaru. There are many things I like, but if I had to pick only one, I'd choose chakra. Learning about it, using it, anything involving it really." Seriously, chakra was freaking awesome. "And what I dislike, no, what I loathe the most in this world is Kishimoto."

Naruto gave me a bewilderment look, "Who?"

"Kishimoto is the name of a cruel god, the source of all evil in this world and the king of trolls. He is a heartless bastard that enjoys crushing people hopes and has the habit of cutting off men's genitals when you least expect it." I ignored the crazy looks everyone was giving me. They had no idea what a troll Kishimoto could be, if they did they'd hate him too. "Anyway, as for dreams." Rippling eyes flashed though my mind, "Well, there is no point in telling you right now. Just wait for a little while longer and you'll get to see it come true for yourself."

"I see," Kakashi then turned to Shikamaru, "you next."

The boy let out a tired sigh before speaking. "My name is Nara Shikamaru. I like to relax and cloud watch on peaceful days, and play Shogi or Go. I dislike women. My dreams-"

"Wait! Wait up a second." I leaned forward so that I could get a clear view of him from where he sat on the other side of Naruto. "Women? I was so sure that you disliked 'troublesome' things, not women."

Shikamaru just lazily blinked at me, "…there is a difference?"

Naruto raised a hand and smacked him on the back of the head.

"Ouch!" Shikamaru yelped and rubbed his head, before he shot me a look and pointed at her. "See? Troublesome." He grumbled some more before sighing. "Anyway, my dream is to have a completely stress-free life."

"Boy, aren't you the daring one. You sure you aren't setting the bar too high?" Shikamaru just shrugged and Kakashi then turned to Naruto, "you next."

"Finally!" Naruto cheered and adjusted her forehead protector. "My name is Uzumaki Naruto. I like pizza, well played pranks and my Shadow Clones. I dislike waiting, either for food or tardy teachers." She shot Kakashi a quick glare before smiling again. "As for my dream…" her words slowed to a halt and her expression turned thoughtful.

"A dream, huh?" She leaned back a bit and looked up to the sky. "I wonder – I don't really know anymore." Her blue eyes seemed to gaze on something we could not see, as strands of blond hair was pulled over her face by the wind. She drifted off in thought for a while before speaking up again. "I guess I pretty much already have everything I ever wanted, so maybe my dream is for things to continue to stay the same." She lowered her gaze and gave Kakashi an uncertain look. "Is that weird?"

"…No, no it's not." He crinkled his eye and gave her that eye-smile of his, looking oddly pleased for some reason. "Now that we all know each other a bit better, it's time to start your graduation exam."

"Exam?" Naruto sat up in surprise. "But we just finished our exams."

"No," I corrected her, "what we finished was the Academy exams. What his talking about is his personal test." Seeing the confused look on her face, I asked. "You don't know about the apprenticeship laws?" She shook her head and I had to resist the urge to sigh, "Really, this is what you get for not reading anything outside of the absolute minimum."

I turned to Kakashi, "Sorry Sensei but Naruto is going to need an explanation about the laws."

Kakashi nodded in agreement. "You're right, she does." Then instead of beginning his explanations, he just placed an elbow on his knee before cupping his chin.

I sat there, waiting for him to start, but he did nothing and kept looking at me while I looked back at him.

Then it dawned on me.

"Would you like me to explain it for her?"

"Hmm? Oh if you really want to, sure, go ahead." He waved me on, clearly more than happy to let me do his job for him.

"Thank you," I forced out between my teeth. Note to self, add Kakashi to the list…Also, start making a list. Turning back to Naruto I began explaining. "You know how the Hokage is the supreme leader of Konoha, and has complete command over ever one of its ninja?

"Of course." She nodded.

"Yeah, well that's not completely true. While the Hokage is the leader of Konoha, he does not have complete command over its ninjas." I held up a hand to forestall her when she looked like she was about to interrupt. "While he _does_ have full command over us during times of war or emergencies, but during periods of peace the only ninjas that are under his complete control are the Anbu. The regular ninja forces are not forced to obey his every command. Think of it this way, you know how as ninjas we are allowed to pick our missions right?"

Naruto nodded again.

"Now, what happens if we are offered a mission we don't want? Let's say the mission was too dangerous, or we were too tired from our last job and want a break, what do we do then?"

"We…just say no?" her voice rose up towards the end, making it sound more of a question than an answer.

"Correct." Giving her an encouraging smile, "we just say no. It's as simple as that. The Hokage cannot force us to accept a mission; it's not the way things work. While Anbu have no right to decline a mission or a direct order from the Hokage, we do. That's not to say the Hokage doesn't have any authority over us, because he does, a lot of it. It just means that we as ninja of Konoha have our own rights as well. Understand?"

"Yeah, I think I get it." Naruto slowly nodded her head to show her understanding, before tilting it to the side, "But what does this have to do with the exam?"

"Everything. Jonin like Kakashi here," I waved a hand towards him, "are not required to take on students. While it is traditional for Jonin to take apprentices eventually, so that they can pass on their skills to the next generation, they are not required to do so and the Hokage certainly cannot force them to. And for good reason. You can't just force people to part with their personal techniques and skills when they don't want to and expect it to work. Nothing good can come from that. Which is why Jonin or Chuunin instructors have to volunteer for the role.

"Now up to that point, there is no problem. The problem comes when deciding which students they have to train. If you let the Jonin to choose their own students then they would all just pick the best of the year, like you and me, or someone from their own Clan. Other students with average potential or who don't come from large Clans would be left behind.

"Naturally that couldn't be allowed to happen, which is why the Hokage is the one who decides who gets to train who, not the Jonin. While they are allowed petition the Hokage for certain students, the final decision will always lie with him. But this leaves us with an additional problem.

"What happens if a Jonin gets saddled with a group of student he doesn't like? Remember, no one can force them to train the students, and even if Hokage did try everyone would just revolt. These are their hard won skills we're talking about, some of them are their Clan's techniques, others are their own personally jutsu that they developed themselves. You can't expect to force them to give that knowledge away without consequences.

"But we can't allow the Jonin to decline the students from the get go just because they didn't get the ones they wanted, nothing will ever get done that way. So a compromise was made, an exam. Every Jonin would be obligated to test out the students, if they fail, don't meet their standards, or if he simply doesn't like the kids then he can walk away, no questions asked.

"The test gives the students an opportunity to prove themselves, a chance to show what their made of and convince the Jonin that their worthy of his time. If they succeed then good, the Jonin has his students, the students have a teacher, everyone is happy. If they fail then the students would either get handed over to the next Jonin available or even Chuunin if there are no Jonin left. In the worst cases they may have to wait for months until they get assigned to their personal Sensei."

"So you mean we have to prove ourselves," she pointed skeptically at Kakashi, "to _him_? But look at him, he's a slob. He can't even make it to work on time. Can't we trade him in for someone better? I know Hokage-Jiji would listen to me if I asked him for an upgrade, maybe even switch up for a younger model." Naruto said while eyeing Kakashi's hair.

"I resent that," Kakashi rose a hand to his head, "I'll have you know my hair is silver not grey. I'm still in my twenties." And I couldn't help but notice how he didn't deny being a slob.

"Naruto, there is no _better model._" I explained, "I am the rookie of the year and you are the top kunoichi, we are both the most highly sought after students from this years lot, which means we would be assigned the best Sensei that there is. So no matter what he looks like," I pointed at Kakashi, "He is currently the best teacher Konoha has to offer, there is no one better. Anyone else we can get to replace him would only be worse."

"Bingo." Kakashi chimed in, "You see ducklings, it doesn't matter how special you think you are, it doesn't even matter how special the Hokage think you are, in the end all that matters is what _I_ think of you. I'm the one who gets to decide whether you pass and continue as Genin or fail and get sent back to the Academy."

I frowned as I noticed something wrong with his words, "Sent back to the Academy? Kakashi-Sensei, what are you talking about. If you fail us the worst that would happen is that we get passed along to the next Jonin in line, you don't have the authority to send us back to the Academy."

"Hmm, you would normally be right." The masked-man nodded as he scratched his chin, "Normally being the operative word here, and this is far from normal circumstances. Tell me do you what has been happening over the last four hours?"

"We've been waiting for you to show up, that's what." Naruto grumbled.

Kakashi rolled his eyes, "Other than that."

Naruto to turned to look at me but I had no idea what he was talking about either and just shrugged.

"Let me give you a clue then," He snapped his finger and pointed at me, "You, bug eyes, can you check up on what the rest of your classmates are doing."

Confused, and more than a little bit suspicious, I decided to comply for now. Flashing open my Byakugan I began searching for my now former classmates. It didn't take me long to find them all, as far as I can tell none of them were doing anything out of the ordinary. Just like with Kurenai's and Asuma's team, they were all hanging out together and trying to get to know their new teammates and Sensei better now that they all passed-

Then it hit me.

"Oh you son of a bitch," I turned off my Byakugan and glared at the grey-haired man, who just eye-smiled back at me. "You weren't just fucking with us for the hell of it, you were stalling!"

"Hikaru, what's wrong?" Naruto asked, concerned.

I turned to her, "The other teams, they all passed. Every single last one of them."

I could tell by her reaction that Naruto didn't understand why I was upset, but Shikamaru seemed to get it right away.

"I see," Shikamaru turned his eyes on the Jonin, "so that's what you meant. You set things up so that you'd be our only option." He tsked and scratched his head, "This is going to end up being such a drag."

"Correct," Kakashi clapped his hands, "Konoha has lost a lot of good ninjas in the Kyuubi attack twelve years ago, and while we are well onto the road of recovery, we are still not quite there yet. We've been having a bit of Jonin shortage problem for years now, and the Hokage has been having trouble finding enough Jonin-instructors to teach newly graduating Genin. As a matter of fact, this year he was barely able to pull in enough instructors for each group. And now that the rest of the Jonin have finished selecting their teams, that means that the only remaining group of Genin and Jonin that aren't paired up yet are you three," He pointed at us, then at himself, "and me."

Naruto just snorted, "So what? Why are you all making such a big deal out of this?" She flashed a cocky smirk at the man, "All we have to do is pass this exam of yours then we'll be good right? Then hurry up and give it to us so we'll ace it. If every other team was able to pass theirs then this should be easy."

Kakashi chuckled, "Well, aren't you the optimistic one? But I'm sorry to say I'm nowhere near as soft as the other Instructors," Kakashi raised his hand and held up three fingers. "Three time. I have been assigned three other groups before you, and all of them failed my exam, and from what I've seen of you ducklings, it doesn't seem like you're going to fare any better."

If he meant to scare her off then he failed because Naruto grin just grew larger "Well of course they failed, they didn't have me on their team did they? Listen up Sensei, I am Uzumaki Naruto, and you have never met anyone like me before."

I had to repress a chuckle at that. Naruto was right, despite Kakashi attempt to scare us, there was no way we'd fail. Ignoring what I already knew of his test, I knew that Kakashi would never fail Naruto and allow his Sensei's daughter be trained by someone else, someone potentially less competent from himself.

And between Naruto, Shikamaru and me, this team was pretty much a well-rounded powerhouse. The odds of us failing were close to nil. Not to mention I already knew the answer behind the bell test, and so long as nothing had changed then there is no way we can lose.

Kakashi just yawned and gave Naruto an unimpressed look, "Hmm, well, I guess we'll see soon enough whether you're all talk or not. Listen up, I'm about to the rules to the exam." He reached into the pouch strapped to his side and pulled out a pair of bells. "Your objective is simply to get one of these two bells for yourselves."

I released a breath I didn't realize I was holding and allowed myself a tiny grin of victory. That confirms it, this is our win.

"Tomorrow morning we'll be meeting up at this team's assigned training field at 08:00 sharp. The exam will commence only once all of us have arrived and will continue until noon, at which point the exam will come to a close. Your objective is to try and take a bell off of me and keep it safe until the end of the exam. To pass, you need to capture a bell and keep it on your person when the time limit runs out. If you do not have a bell on you by the end, then you fail. It doesn't matter if you captured a bell at one point, if you don't have one when the exam is over then you lose."

He looked at each of us one by one, "For the duration of the exam, I officially permit the use of lethal attacks, both on me and on each other. Once we start, anything goes, any tactics or jutsu you know are permitted. This is a test to determine your qualification as ninjas, as soldiers, and I expect you all to fight with your life on the line."

"Wait," Naruto raised her hand, noticing the obvious flaw with the exam. "You said only those with a bell are allowed to pass, but you only have two of them and there are three of us. How are we supposed to all pass then?"

"Hmm, wasn't I being clear enough? Uzumaki Naruto, think on this," His eyes turned cold as they locked onto her, "Why do you think I gave you permission to attack each other?"

Naruto head shot straight up when she got what he was implying, "But that's-!"

"This is the Ninja world brat, not some playground. In here, it's either kill or be killed. If an enemy has what you need to survive, you either take it from him or just sit down and let them to slit your throat." He jingled the bells at her, "Besides, dragging around three kids with me is too much of a pain. If I cut you down to two, things will be much easier for me."

"…Bastard," Naruto growled out from clenched teeth, glaring furiously at the Jonin, looking as if she'd be more than happy to begin attacking him right now. "You're really planning on making us to fight each other just to make your job easier?"

"Of course," Kakashi smiled at her, "But it's not like I'm going to force you to participate. If you are so opposed to my exam then you can just quit right now and try again next year, with another Sensei. Of course you'd be doing it with another team too, as I'll just take the other two here as my students and leave you behind. But I'm sure you don't mind being separated from friends if it means you don't have to get your hands dirty?"

Naruto look startled at that, and shot me a glance of pure panic. However, despite me wearing my best Hyuuga poker face, Naruto must have seen through my facade because she quickly calmed down and relaxed. She may have not known why I was feeling so calm but trusted me enough to believe I must have had a good reason for it. Really, this girl trusted me far too much.

I spared a quick glance at Naruto's opposite side to Shikamaru, who was coolly watching our Sensei. Despite the man's attempts to rile us up, the Nara was as calm as ever. He must have either figured out the true meaning behind the test already or was simply too lazy to get worked up over it.

He must have felt me watching him because he turned to look at me, his eyes jumping to Naruto for a second before returning back to mine. Then he rolled his eyes at me, snorted and let out a large yawn before closing eyes, as if everything happening was too troublesome for him to bother with.

I felt a tiny smile brush on my lips. Good, everything is going well. With this, the exam is as good as won-

"Just Kidding~" Kakashi called out in a sing-song voice, derailing my thoughts, before his hand blurred.

The concrete steps behind me shattered, kicking up a small cloud of white dust just as something whizzed past my head.

_Huh?_

I slowly turned around to look behind me, only to find myself staring in disbelief at the now deformed bell which was buried deep inside the concrete steps after Kakashi had flicked it away. When I turned to look back at the man in question, he just smiled cheerfully at me.

"Really, you guys just keep making this more difficult for me." Kakashi rubbed the back of his head, "There is no point giving you an exam you're guaranteed to win."

"What?" Naruto looked between the damage step and Kakashi with wide eyes, confusion written all over her face. "What are you taking about? What's going on?"

Kakashi pointed at me and Shikamaru, "These two, they figured everything out. Well, I guess it is a pretty obvious exam. The only people who can't figure the trick behind it are idiots..."

"But…but…but I haven't figured it out." Naruto then stopped to think about what she just said. "HEY!"

"There is no point in carrying on. I can already predict what's going to happen. You," he pointed at me, "already know about the bell test. Either you've stumbled upon the information when researching about me or overheard someone talking about it by chance. Well it's not like it was a big secret anyway, the tale of how the Third gave the Sannin the bell test used to be pretty popular back in the day." Then he pointed to Shikamaru, "You probably puzzled everything out and would have willingly drop out and allowed the other two to get the bells without fighting, knowing that was the correct answer." Then at Naruto, "And you are so desperate to avoid fighting that you would have just followed any plan those two proposed if it meant there was even the smallest chance of all three of you passing."

Kakashi shrugged, "Like I said, this test is now pointless. Besides, even if none of you figured it out the results would have been obvious. The Nara is too lazy to bother fighting over the bell and would have happily dropped out of the running. The blonde is more loyal than a puppy and would never betray her teammates, and since she has her little pet Hyuuga completely whipped she would have no trouble convincing him not to fight."

"Hey!" I objected, "Who the hell are you calling whipped?"

"You obviously." The man rolled his eyes – well, an eye - "To others it may appear like Naruto is the one following you around, but to me it looks like you're the one following her. Tell me, if I was being serious about the exam, and she was the one out of the three of you to fail. What would you have done? Would you continue on without her or stay back at the Academy for another year with her?"

"I…I…" my cheeks colored slightly as I realized how easy it was to answer that question. "That doesn't mean I'm whipped!"

"Then tell me, do you cook for her?

"Of course I do, have you ever tried Naruto's cooking? The last time she tried boiling water she somehow managed to set it on fire."

"Clean up after her?"

"No! I force her to clean up any mess she makes after herself…I just tend to lend a hand sometimes …and end up doing most of it myself, but that's only because I enjoy cleaning."

"Help her with her shopping?"

"Have you seen what she wears? If I let her choose her own clothing she'd dress up like an orange, and I mean the fruit not-"

Kakashi didn't even bother waiting for me to finish. "Alright, maybe I was wrong. You're not just whipped, you're practically a housewife." He made a whipping motion, "a whipped one."

…I will kill this man.

Shikamaru – the traitor - actually snickered at me, while Naruto had this wide beaming grin on her face.

"Ohh~~ don't worry Hikaru," She patted my head condescendingly, clearly not meaning a single word she said, "I don't think you're whipped …much." She added quietly, but just loud enough for me to hear it.

I levelled my best glare at her, trying and failing to banish my embarrassed blush. "You-are-dead."

"Sure I am." She snickered happily.

"Ok, enough of that ducklings." Kakashi clapped once to gather our attention. "Now that my original plan is ruined, I'm going to have to modify the rules a bit."

"What do we have to do?" Naruto asked.

"Simple." He held up his remaining bell and jiggled it. "You still have to get the bell off me, but this time it's an all or nothing deal. If you succeed you all pass. If you fail, then all of you will be sent back to the Academy."

"Great! Just what I wanted." The blonde cheered.

I, on the other hand, was nowhere near as excited as she was. From what I remembered of the bell test, we weren't supposed to actually succeed in stealing the bells. All we had to do was demonstrate some team work and then we'd pass, but now it sounded like Kakashi actually wanted us to steal a bell. Which made this test so much harder.

"...Sensei, I just want to confirm something. Are you sure you're not using this test as an excuse to beat us up because you're sore we spoiled you original plans?"

Kakashi gave me an offended look, "Do you really think I am the kind of person who would do something as shallow as that?"

"Yes." All three of us nodded our head unanimously.

Kakashi just smiled, "Well, that's all I have to say. Be sure to get some rest." He rose up from his seat and gave us one final warning before leaving, "Remember, be there at 08:00 sharp. The exam won't start until all of us arrives."

Then with a quick application of Shunshin, he flickered away.

The rooftop felt oddly empty now that he was gone. Each of us that remained fell silent as we all thought on our new Sensei and what our new test would hold for us.

"Well…that was annoying." Shikamaru, the first to break the silence, stood up and dusted his pants. He gave us a quick wave over his shoulder as he walked towards the exit, "See ya."

He barely took a single step forward before a hand reached out and yanked him back by the collar. He glanced back and found himself staring into my face. "And where do you think you're going?" I asked.

Shikamaru gave me a bored look, "Home. Where else?"

I shook my head, "No, you're not. We got a test to prepare for remember? If we want even the slightest chance of passing then we need to start planning right away."

"Correction. You have a test to prepare for." Shikamaru shrugged my hand off him. "I, however, have some much needed sleep to catch up on." He gave us another waved and started to walk away. "See ya."

"Don't take another step," Shikamaru paused mid-step and gave me an annoyed look, "You are going to stay and help prepare, or else."

"Or else what?"

I smiled, "I'll make you."

"How?" Shikamaru snickered, "We're not students anymore and this is not the Academy. You heard Iruka, we're legally adults. That means you can't even touch me unless you want to get in legal trouble." He gave me a condescending look, "So what are you going to do? Tell my mum on me or something?"

The smile I gave him in return was something pure evil.

"As a matter of fact…"

* * *

"Oh, of course I wouldn't mind if Shikamaru stayed out late to train."

Nara Yoshino, Shikamaru's mom and a retired kunoichi, seemed wholly delighted by my request. We were standing at the front door of her house and, going by the white apron she was wearing and the iron skillet in her hand, she hand been in the middle of preparing lunch when we rang the door.

"In fact, I wouldn't even mind if you took him away for an entire month. Really, that boy of mine needs to get out of the house more often anyway."

"Thank you so much Yoshino-san." I bowed respectfully to Shikamaru's mom before flashing her a polite smile. "Don't worry, I'll be sure to keep a close eye on your son and I promise to let you know if he's causing any trouble."

Yoshino cupped her cheek as she smiled happily, "Oh what a wonderful child, if only my boy was a bit more like you." Then her smile seemed to freeze, "Speaking of my boy."

I swear it was like a watching Dr. Jekyll turn into Mr. Hyde, as right before my eyes the sweet middle-age mom transformed into a raging she-devil. Yoshino turned to her son and pointed her iron skillet at him, yelling, "Did you hear me Shikamaru! I expect you to be on your best behaviour with your new teammates, and I don't want to hear so much as a single bad thing about you. Have I made myself clear?"

Off to one side, Naruto had to muffle her mouth with her hands to keep herself from breaking out in laughter. While Shikamaru, eyes twitching, just dumbly nodded to his mother before turning to look at me.

I just put on a big innocent smile, "You hear that Shika, you're mum said it was ok for you to stay and train."

Shikamaru just sighed and lowered his head,"…Troubleso- NO!" His head shot up, and he glared at me as something in him snapped. "This has gone beyond being just troublesome. This is pure _bullshit_!"

"Shikamaru! Language!"

Naruto reached the end of her limits and let out a howl of laughter.

* * *

There comes a time, a single moment in your life when things simply start to make sense. You gain a certain sense of clarity and you look back at your life with wiser eyes and things that were once obscure and uncomprehendable become painfully clear. Monks would refer to such a feeling as enlightenment, and would dedicate their entire life in pursuit of it. Yet every now and then completely ordinary people going about their daily lives would stumble upon it by pure chance. Just like I did. And in my moment of enlightenment, when the world makes infinitely more sense and the truth was as clear as the sun in the sky, I have come to a startling conclusion. I realized…

… I was an idiot.

This truth was never more clearer to me than it was now as I watched Naruto pace in circles, a constant stream of 'Late-late-late, he's late!' spilling from her lips and filled the air in what would have been a perfect re-enactment of yesterday's events were it not for our current surroundings.

It turned out that our training ground was located smack down in the middle of a large stretch of forested land, just on the outskirts of Konoha. Right now we were in one of the many clearings that dotted the place. I was sitting on top of one of the three training stumps while Shikamaru leaned on another from his place on the ground. Naruto, of course, was pacing the width of the clearing as she had been for the last hour.

It was the morning of our exam and we had stayed up most of the previous night scouting the area, finishing up the last bits of our preparation and double checking our plans for any mistakes. When we were finished, it was well past midnight and we barely had enough time to get in a few hours' worth of sleep before rushing over here.

We had to all be there at eight o'clock sharp if we didn't want to waste even a single minute of our exam time, which was why I had Naruto and Shikamaru crash at my place. When it was time to wake up, I made sure to personally dragged them out of their beds and all the way here, just in time for the start of the exam.

All in all we should have started the exam almost an hour ago were it not for one tiny little problem. You see, Kakashi… hasn't showed up yet… he was late… for the start of his own test…

…Truly, I was an idiot.

'_The exam won't begin until all of us arrive_,' Kakashi warned us twice and yet at the time I still didn't grasp that by _us_, he included himself. In my preparation to make sure my teammates all arrived on time I had forgotten to drag the laziest member of our group.

And because of that mistake we were now wasting precious minutes waiting for our instructor that we could have been using on the exam instead. And I had no one to blame but myself.

"What's taking that scarecrow so long to get here?" Naruto stopped her pacing and walked up to me, "Hey Hikaru, can't we start setting things up now? The scarecrow isn't here, he won't notice anything if we start early."

I shook my head, "It won't work," I had considered the option myself, but after scanning the forest I had been forced to reconsider, "I've been spotting packs of dogs roaming the area. Not ordinary ones either, these have their own chakra networks so they must be _nin-ken_, ninja-dogs."

"Dogs?" Naruto frowned, "You mean like the Inuzuka's? How did the scarecrow ever manage to do that? Kiba would never allow anyone to borrow Akamaru, he barely allows the puppy to leave his sights as it is."

"That's because they're not the Inuzuka's dogs but the summoned variety." I explained, "Kakashi is supposed to be the Dog Clan's head summoner and from what I heard, he has been working alongside them for years. Going by the looks of things he must have sent them on ahead, probably to scout the area for any traps we might have set up. They're keeping their distance but if we try anything unusual they'll notice, so we better stick to the plan. You and Shikamaru should stay hidden for now and wait until the fighting starts up before moving out."

Naruto looked away with a frown and crossed her arms, "I know, I know. It's just, I'm sick and tired of all this waiting. Why can't Kakashi get his ass over here so we can start already?"

From my perch on the log, I gave my blonde friend an amused smile, "You know, I never could understand that part about you." Naruto gave me a questioning look, "How can you wait so patiently during one of your traps but still be so impatient at any other time?"

Naruto had already been a prankster by the time we first met. Since her pranks had always been on the harmless side I never saw any reason to discourage her from continuing her hobby, other than making sure she avoided pranking my Clan of course. And it was a good thing I didn't, because the skills she developed thanks to her pranks had ended up being invaluable.

Naruto has always excelled in three particular combat related skills. The first was in taijutsu. She had a body that could soak up damage like you couldn't believe, an endurance that allowed her to run for hours without rest and phenomenal physical strength that could dish out damage with the best of them. Combined with years of experience from sparring with me, and you had one hell of a taijutsu fighter on your hands.

In a head on fight, she was on par with the likes of Kiba, one of the top hand-to-hand fighters in our year, second only to me. The only reason why I had such a large lead on her in taijutsu was thanks to my skills in the Gentle fist combine with my advantage in speed. The Hyuuga's fighting style was renowned as the strongest in Konoha for a very good reason after all.

Her second talent was in stealth. While her excessively large chakra signature made it impossible for her to hide from a sensor, against anyone else she was a ghost. I still have no idea how she did it, but Naruto had a way of blending in with her surroundings. Whether it was in the middle of the village or the heart of a forest it didn't seem to make a difference, Naruto was equally skilled in hiding in both terrain. Even Iruka was stumped, he had no idea how she managed to get so good in it as this wasn't something that he taught her, no one did. Naruto just seemed to have a natural knack for it.

Her final skill lay in trap-making, and it was here that her pranking experience came in handy, for what was a prank but a harmless trap? She took to it like a fish takes to water, and when she went to work on her traps it was like watching an entirely different person. The usual Naruto, the loudmouth with nigh endless energy was gone, replaced by someone with all the stillness and patience of stone. I had seen the girl remain perfectly still for hours as she watched over trap, waiting for someone to spring it. She didn't move the entire time, didn't so much as twitch.

Once, a few years back when I was still a child – well, an even younger child - I had caught a cold, a bad one. I couldn't remember much of that time, just jumbled up fevered dreams and disjointed memories, but what I do clearly remember was waking up when my fever broke to find a half-exhausted, half-terrified Naruto standing vigil by my bedside.

She was standing so unnaturally still that I thought I was still dreaming. Later my mum told me she stayed by my side for the entire two days I was sick, refusing to budge no matter what, and didn't make so much as make a peep because she was afraid of disturbing me. But I only found out about that later, and at the time I was confused as hell when I found myself cradled by a crying Naruto who held me as if I was made from fragile glass.

And yet that very same girl would hop from foot to foot in impatience when waiting for a pizza to finish baking or would be driven up the walls whenever Kakashi was late as if she was a six year old on sugar high.

"That's because setting up a trap is different. This is this and that is that, you can't compare the two."

"Why is it Naruto that I always seem to end up even more confused after your explanations than I ever was before? I swear it's like you're doing this on-", My head shot up as a chakra signature flared up not too far from here, moving towards us at an incredibly fast pace. "Well, guess who decided to show up." I pushed myself off the training post and landed softly on my feet. "Get ready, the test is about to begin."

Before Naruto could even form a reply Kakashi appeared on the field with a flicker of Shunshin. The moment he caught sight of us he gave us a cheerful smile and waved. "Hey guys," He began walking towards us, "Good morning!"

"YOU'RE LATE!" Naruto yelled out and leveled her best glare at the man, but it didn't seem to bother Kakashi much and he shrugged it off.

"Well it seems that I am." Kakashi reached into his jacket and pulled out an alarm clock "But now that we are all here we can final begin, unless you guys need more time?" Naruto just snorted at the question while I just shook my head. He glanced towards the silent Shikamaru who also shook his head.

"Good," Kakashi walked up to one of the training logs and placed the clock on top of it, "The alarm is set to ring precisely at noon, at which point the exam will end. Your objective is to retrieve this bell off me," Kakashi held up a bell by its string and jingled it, "if none of you succeed in obtaining the bell within the time limit, you all fail and will be sent back to the Academy for another year. Succeed, then you all pass and we become a team. It is as simple as that."

Kakashi had been walking away from us while he spoke, so when he finally stopped and turned to face us, there was over a dozen yards of space separating us. He brought the bell to his waist and tied it on the belt, giving it a tug to make sure it was securely fastened. He gave us each one final look, first to Naruto and me who were standing side by side before him, then to the oddly silent Shikamaru who hasn't risen from his seat by the post.

"There will be no retries; this will be your first and only chance. The range of the examination is this entire forest, I already cleared it with the other teams and the Hokage, and had the place evacuated. So there is no need to worry about anyone getting caught up in the crossfire, you may fight to your heart's content. And one final thing," The air grew thick and heavy, as Kakashi began leaking out killing intent, "fight to kill. All and any lethal attacks are permitted in this examination. I suggest you don't hesitate in using them."

"Trust me Sensei," Naruto cracked her knuckles and gave him a hungry grin, "you don't need to worry about me hesitating over killing you."

Kakashi gave her one of his eye-smiles and the killing intent disappeared. "Good," He raised his hand up to the air. "The exam will officially begin-" He dropped his hand down, "-_Now_!"

…

…

…

"…Umm," Kakashi scratched his chin and looked around at the three of us who haven't moved a single step, "You know, this is the part where you're supposed to hide."

"But Sensei," Naruto purred out the words with relish, "we _are_ hiding. You simply haven't realized it yet."

Kakashi narrowed his single eye at her as he pondered her words, before it widened with comprehension. In a single fluent motion, Kakashi pulled out and threw a barrage of shuriken at us.

With a leap to my left I avoided the attack, the others however didn't. Naruto just smirked as the missiles approach her, arms crossed confidently over her chest. Shikamaru too was grinning, and it was such a perfect mirror image of Naruto's that it looked unnatural on his face. The barrage of shuriken tore through them, digging into their flesh-

Then they both burst into a puff of smoke.

"…Shadow clones?" Kakashi muttered, "I see, so that's why Shikamaru wasn't moving."

"That's right. While Naruto is talented in the _henge_, she still hasn't quite gotten the knack of mimicking other people's body language pat down." I began to explain the set up in an attempt to stall for more time. Ninjas as a whole were a curious bunch, odds are if you began explaining the mechanics behind your plan or attack they would be willing to stop and listen, even if you were in a middle of fight. "Or at least not well enough to fool you anyway. And it's not like Shikamaru could make a shadow clone himself, so we had to make do. Luckily the guy had always been a rather lazy bastard, so him being a lay about wasn't too much out of character."

Kakashi glance around, "Hmm, so where are they?"

"Where else?" I shrugged, "They're somewhere in the forest setting up a trap of course." I didn't bother hiding the plan, it was an obvious enough that he would have figure it out anyway. Besides, with this guy's personality, Kakashi would probably be all too happy to walk into the trap just so that he could rub it into our faces when he breaks out of it and prove how ineffective it was on him.

His single eye seemed to dance with amusement, "And you're here to stall me?"

"Well, that's the plan anyway. But personally, after all the shit you've been giving me over the years, I have no intention of following through with it," I dropped into the opening stance of the Gentle Fist, leading with my left foot. Both of my palms were open and facing Kakashi, my left hand straight before me while my right was pulled back to my waist. Flashing my Byakugan open, I smirked at the man, "I mean why should I just settle for stalling you when I have the much better option of kicking your ass and taking the bell off you myself?"

In contrast to me, Kakashi didn't bother taking a stance, he just stood there in his usual relax pose. "Maa~, and you think that you, _Mr. Rookie of the year,_" His voice took on a mocking tone as he said the title, "think you have what it takes to pull it off? Well, then please go ahead and give it your best shot."

"With pleasure."

Taking a deep breath, I slowly exhaled and shut my eyes to help me focus. My awareness of the world around me disappeared as I turned my entire attention inward.

From the very first day I had been reincarnated into this world, I had been struggling with a problem. A question that haunted me during the entirety of my early years.

How was I supposed to win?

I knew that to accomplish my goals I needed to grow strong. Strong enough to defeat the greatest ninjas in history, the ones who stood at the top of the Shinobi world, the monsters known as S-Class.

But how was I supposed to do that?

The Hyuuga are powerful in their own right, of that there can be no doubt. They had produced more A-rank ninja than any single Clan in Konoha. But that was just it, they _only _produced A-rank ninja. Never in the entire history of the Clan had it ever succeeded in producing an S-rank ninja.

Which meant I could not rely on the Hyuuga fighting style alone to get me there, I had to produce one of my own.

So I searched. From the very depth of my memories to every scroll in the Hyuuga Clan Library, I searched. I researched the fighting style of every S-rank ninja the Shinobi world ever produced, dissected their techniques and tried to figure out if they were compatible with my own. I spent years trying to find a solution.

And like with most things in life, I ended up stumbling over the answer by luck.

It was when I first learned of my affinity, when I stared at the crumpled strip of chakra paper in my hand, that an old half-forgotten memory began to surface.

It was of a dark-skinned man who wrapped himself in lightning, donning it as if it were a cloaked.

A man who moved so fast that the eye could not track him.

A man who fought a Tailed-beast with nothing but his bare hands.

It was then that I knew what I must do.

_Speed_

That was my answer.

With my Gentle Fist, I had no need for strength. What meaning was there in a punch that could turn boulders to dust when I could kill a man with but a single tap of my fingers? No, strength was not something I had use for, it speed was what I needed. Speed so fast that I could reach out and touch an enemy before he knew I was there.

And who was the fastest man alive?

The Raikage – He who ran with lightning.

A scroll containing information on the Raikage's famed lightning armor, the _Lightning Release Chakra Mode_, did exist in the Library. It held all the instruction needed to learn the jutsu, but when I began my first tentative attempts to learn the technique my father had outright forbidden me from even trying.

I said it before, jutsu were stupidly hard things to learn, and the lightning release was on a completely different level of difficulty. In the forty years since my Clan gained possession of this scroll, not a single Hyuuga ever came close to learning it. Many of our most promising ninjas had given it a try and all had failed, some even had died in their attempt.

Just to begin learning the Lightning Release, one had to meet two prerequisite.

The first was to obtain a high degree of chakra control along with a powerful lightning affinity. Both was something I had in abundance. Chakra control was my forte, even among the Hyuugas who are famed for it I was on another level. And ever since I discovered my lightening affinity I have been training at it every chance I could get. Even as I read my books during class, I would practice molding my lightning chakra so that sparks of electric currents leapt between my fingers.

The second prerequisite was a solid understanding of how the human body works, in particular the nervous system. The Lightning Release uses electricity to stimulate the user's nervous system, which in turn results in a massive increase in reaction time and pushes the user's physical prowess to the absolute limit, allowing for tremendous raw speed.

You couldn't simply pour electricity through nerves and expect them to work faster, if you tried something that stupid all you would end up doing was burning out all your nerves. The nervous system was incredibly complex, made of billions of neurons. And to make matters even harder, as if they weren't already hard enough, there were hundreds of different kinds of neurons. This meant that every type of nerve had a different threshold limit for the amount of lightning chakra it could hold before they burned out. The nerves in your brain for example were far more fragile than the ones in the muscles of your arm.

I had spent the last few years learning everything I could about the human nervous system. I read every medical textbook I could get my hands on, memorize every chart or technique that could help me. It took me years but I managed to do it. And I had one major advantage that helped me along the way, my Byakugan.

With it I could _see_ my own nervous system, along with the electric impulse that ran through my nerves. I knew how much lightning chakra I could pour into myself, because I could see the moment the nerve approached its limit and began to strain.

My father told me that I would only be allowed to study the scroll when I succeeded in obtaining both of those prerequisites, and I finally managed to do that in the last year.

After several years of hard work, I finally obtained the right to _begin_ learning the technique. See? I told you jutsu were stupidly hard to learn.

The _Lightning Release Chakra Mode _turned out to be not so much as a single technique, but two combined into one. One half of the jutsu taught you how to speed up your body, the other taught you how to speed up your mind.

What was the point of moving faster when you lacked the reflexes to match it? What good was moving at the speed of lightning when your thoughts could only move at a fraction of that speed? To completely master the Lightning Release, you needed a mind that could think and react as fast as lightning itself. So I concentrated on mastering the mind half of the jutsu first.

Last month I succeeded.

And now I would finally get to test it.

I opened my eyes, and what greeted me was a frozen world.

The leaves that drifted down from the trees hung suspended in the air, as if held up by invisible hands. A bird that was gliding down toward a branch now dangled unmoving, just an inched above its intended perch. Even Kakashi did not move, did not even breathe from where he stood across from me.

Yet I knew that the world was no different than it had been before I had shut my eyes. It was not the world that had changed, but me. Or to be more precise, it was my perception of the world that had change.

Right now the neurons in my brain was firing a several dozen times faster than normal, allowing me to process my thoughts at an unbelievable speed, almost lightning fast. And that was exactly what I was seeing right now, this was what the world looked like through the eyes of lightning, a world that moved so slow that it practically stood still.

This was my answer to obtaining S-rank.

Pouring chakra into my muscles, I drew out the maximum amount of strength from them that I could, before taking a quick step toward Kakashi. My right foot crawled forward, so slow I could barely perceive it moving, as if it was forcing its way through thick liquid concrete than air.

This was the major flaw with learning only one half of the technique. It was only my thoughts that had sped up, not my body. But even without mastering the Lightning Release I was fast, far faster than any Genin had the right to be, but for all of my speed I was nothing compared to my thoughts. And now I appeared to be moving with all the speed of a snail.

But that was fine – I had already found a way to work around that particular problem.

Focusing at a patch of grass ahead of me, only a couple of feet in front of Kakashi, I began to mold my chakra into a jutsu before swiftly releasing it.

The world seemed to dash by me as my body flew forward, tearing through the air so quickly that it was fast even to my current perception, before I instantly braked to a complete stop just in front of Kakashi.

_Shunshin no Jutsu_ \- a high-speed movement technique that needed a large amount of concentration and control to cast. Though for all of its uses it was deemed near worthless in combat due to the amount of time one needed to cast it.

The user of the Shunshin needed time to focus on a location to flicker to, time to get rid of the disorientation of appearing so fast in a new location, and time to assess his new surroundings. All in all it needed far too much time to be serviceable in combat.

But to me it was far from worthless, after all, I had all the time in the world.

My right foot was still only halfway through completing its first step by the time I had finished flickering. Kakashi himself still hasn't moved at all and was looking straight past me, over my head and at the spot I had been before I flickered in front of him.

That was understandable. From my point of view two whole seconds had already passed since I flickered away, but from Kakashi's perspective it had only been the smallest fraction of a second if that. Had Kakashi been ready, had even guessed I was capable of doing this then things might have been different, but as it was he simply had no time to react or even process that I had already moved.

_Perfect._

The hand by my waist shot ahead, moving in time with my foot as I stepped forward, both limbs traveling as fast as I could push them. While my hand began to creep towards Kakashi I started molding chakra into my palm in preparations for an attack.

Time crawled slowly by as my strike grew closer towards Kakashi's chest, moving almost painfully slow to my eyes. In any other circumstances, I could have landed over a dozen more strikes it took for this one to hit, but within my Lightning Release state, I needed what felt like four seconds for me to complete even a single strike.

When my palm had finally reached the optimum striking distance, a spot only inches away from his chest, and Kakashi still hasn't even begun to react to me, I released my technique.

_Eight Trigrams Vacuum Palm!_

A wave of chakra erupted from my palm just as it was about to touch Kakashi – a vacuum shell with enough raw force behind it to blow a full grown man off his feet, and I made sure to hold nothing back. It shouldn't be anywhere near enough to kill Kakashi but even for a Jonin like him there was no way he was walking out of this without his share of fractured ribs, something that would give me more than enough of a handicap to snatch the bell off him.

In my mind ten seconds had passed since I entered my imperfect Lightening Release state, but in reality, everything that just happened occurred in barely a tenth of a second.

It was over. All I had to do was-

"Maa~ Aren't you the scary one?" A voice came from my right.

_Huh?_

My head reflexively turned towards the voice, infinitely slow, even though I didn't need to turn with my Byakugan open. There, just beside my right shoulder was Kakashi. He had crouched down a bit so that his head was level with mine, and he had one hand cupping his chin as he smiled at me.

_ What! What the hell!_

I swung my right arm toward him in an elbow strike, not an attack of the Gentle Fist but in a desperate attempt to force him away from me. My arm, like the rest of the world around me, moved sluggishly slow towards Kakashi's head. It felt like an entire lifetime had passed until _finally_ my elbow landed on his cheek-

A hand reached out to pat me on my shoulder. "Really, kids these days are scary." Kakashi commented from behind me, somehow disappearing from right before my eyes only to appear at my back.

_What the hell is going on!_

This time I pushed my Lightning Release to the absolute limit. I put every last scrap of concentration I had to speeding up my perception while I spun around to deliver another messy back handed punch, more an attempt to just hit him than cause any real damage.

As my punch once again began to near his face, I made sure keep my entire focus on him, and that was when I saw it.

Sparks of bluish-white light coated his entire body as electric current licked up and down his skin. Just as my strike was about to hit him, Kakashi dodged it. And I did not mean he slowly swayed out of its way at the same speed I was moving. I meant that he simply took a step back at his normal speed while I moved at a pace so slow that a turtle would have looked at me with pity.

In my eyes the entire world moved in super slow motion but not Kakashi, who moved with all of his usual speed. It was like he wasn't governed by the same limitation that everything around him was.

And when he next spoke, I could hear his words clearly, which was not supposed to even be possible. I was perceiving things at was practically a hundred times my usual rate, even sound. Which meant that I would not be able to understand a single word anyone says to me, not as I was. Because all I would end up hearing would be gibberish nonsense as their words were stretched out and distorted.

But when Kakashi spoke, I had no trouble understanding him, which could have only meant one thing. Kakashi was speaking at the same speed I was thinking at, something he would only be able to pull off if…

_SON OF A BITCH! That was the Raikage's Lightning Armor! Why the hell did Kakashi have the Lightning Release!?_

"You know," Kakashi casually walked up to me after easily stepping out of the way of my blow, "It took me most of my life to learn this technique. I was nineteen when I finally figured out how to speed up my thoughts without frying my brain, and even now I still haven't gotten the hang of speeding up my body. Compared to the real deal, my Lightning Armor is nothing but a third rate copy."

_Kakashi wasn't supposed to know this technique! He wasn't supposed to be anywhere near this strong without his Sharingan!_

Kakashi squatted down, ducking under my follow up at attack with such casual ease that I would have been insulted under any other circumstance, and ended up crouching right in front of me. He smiled up from the ground, "But look at you! Barely even twelve and you already mastered half of it. I tell you, these days kids are _scary_." He shook his head mockingly.

This time, when he looked back up, his single eye was as cold as ice and his voice devoid of all humor, "But let me give you a piece of advice –"

Pain flared up from my chin and my head was sent reeling back as Kakashi struck me. The blow knocked me clear off my feet, the sky and ground switching places as I began to flip backwards.

"The problem with only speeding up your mind," When I next saw him, Kakashi was already behind me. I was still drifting in the air, hanging almost horizontally off the ground, so everything in my vision was inverted. "Is that while it does grant you the ability to see the attacks coming, it does nothing to help you avoid them. And when you find yourself in a position where you can neither block nor dodge, all you can do is watch as the attack draws closer to you infinitely slow, helpless and powerless to do anything to prevent it." He raised a hand about a meter above my head before clenching it into a fist. "Like this."

Then he swung down.

Yet even as I watched the fist come soaring down towards my face, I had one thought running through my mind, and it had nothing to do with the inevitable pain I was about to suffer. No, my thoughts were on the man responsible for getting me in this mess- _Kishimoto._

_You nerfed Kakashi didn't you! You bastard? How much did you nerfed the guy for him to be this strong?_

I spent the next several seconds cursing Kishimoto in my mind, and _still_ that punch hadn't reached me. Like Kakashi said, there was nothing I could do but watch as his fist came crashing down towards my face and…

…miss me?

Kakashi's fist change course at the very last second, curving away from my face and into his side-pouch, only to appear a moment later gripping a very familiar orange book.

…

I am really beginning to hate this man.

I decided to turn off my Lightning Release. There was no point in using against him, not when he could use it even better than I could, keeping it on will only end up wasting more of my Chakra.

As soon as I dropped it, the world began to speed up around me. I pulled my knees to my chest and held my hands above my head. The moment my fingers brushed the ground I pushed and back flipped onto my feet.

Kakashi ignored me, engrossed into his book. The man raised a hand to his mouth and let out a perverted giggle as he continued to read from the latest addition to the Icha Icha series: _Icha Icha girls gone wild – lesbian edition._

Still, despite how unguarded he appeared to be, I wasn't fooled. Not anymore. I finally understood my mistake. When I began this fight I had been expecting to fight a different Kakashi, the anime version of himself. But I was wrong, and ended up getting my ass handed to me because of my mistake. That was because the person I ended up fighting with was someone else entirely different than I thought he would be.

The man who stood before me was someone who stepped into the battlefield to one of the bloodiest wars in history at the age of five, where he ended up flourishing. This was the Anbu Captain, Konoha's strongest Jonin and the man who would become the Rokudaime Hokage.

He was the real deal, this was the real _Hatake Kakashi_.

I sighed. Damn, and here I was hoping for an easy win. Hell I'm not even sure what I should be feeling right now. Upset that he's that much stronger than me or happy that I'm going to be taught by someone this strong.

_Ha!_ I really should stop getting ahead of myself again. Until I get the bell off him I shouldn't presume that Kakashi becoming our Sensei is a sure thing. The last time I assumed something when it came him, I got my ass handed to me. For now, I should simply ignore everything and just focus on getting the bell.

With a quick scan of my Byakugan, I checked up on the others. Good, looks like Naruto's almost done. Seems like I've stalled Kakashi long enough, now all that's left is baiting the trap. And I know just how to do it.

I sighed, "And I really was hoping to keep this hidden for a little while longer."

"Hmm?" Kakashi didn't bother to look up from his book, "Did you say something?"

"Not a thing," Reaching up to my forehead protector, I yanked it down so that it covered my eyes. Yet even as I blindfolded myself, I didn't have any trouble seeing, not with my Byakugan. "But Kakashi, in exchange for the advice you've just given me, I'll give you one back in return. For the next minute or so, I suggest you don't take your eyes off of me even for a second, or you may end up regretting it."

When Kakashi just flip a page over and kept reading in response, I couldn't help but smirk. That's right you smug bastard, keep on reading. That'll just make things so much more satisfying when I finally get one over you.

Dropping to one knee, I held my left hand face down on the ground before me, my right hand gripping my left wrist. As I began gathering chakra into my hand, I started explaining, "The tunnel vision was a real pain to get used to but nothing my Byakugan couldn't handle. And the brightness of the attack really hurt my eyes, luckily I could use my forehead protectors to block out the light. And with my imperfect Lightening Release I could boost my reaction time enough to compensate for the speed," Next I began molding the chakra, changing both its form and nature, "It's still not perfect but it should be more than enough to wipe that smug look off your face."

The once peaceful clearing erupted with noise as the screeching of a thousand birds filled the air.

Kakashi's head shot up from his book, his eye widening as genuine surprise filled his features. "That's-!"

Flashes of blue and white light danced off my face as I smirked at him, "What? Did you honestly think that after all of these years you spent spying on me and Naruto, that I wouldn't try spying on you in return? Or did you think that only you were allowed to steal other people's techniques, eh, _Copy Ninja Kakashi_?"

The earth gave way as the sphere of concentrated electricity came to life in my hand, it's chirping proving it worth of its namesake. Kakashi could not take his eyes off it, staring at it in disbelief, and that was when I knew that for the first time since the fight had started, Kakashi had finally lowered his guard.

_Now!_

Pouring chakra to my legs, I burst forward, shooting towards the still stunned Kakashi with every last drop of speed I could draw on, the Chidori cleaving a trench beside me. I covered the space dividing us in an instant, moving so fast that I would have been nothing but a blur to most people, to most ninja, and swung the Chidori towards the right side of his chest.

Yet once again I was proven to be the lesser of the two of us. By whatever standards you measure me by, I was fast. Faster than most Genin, even most Chuunin. There were even Jonin out there whose speed I was confident I could match. Yet for all my speed – Kakashi was simply faster.

With my Lightning Release reactivated, I could see every detail happen in the clarity of slow motion. Kakashi, even through his surprise, reacted flawlessly. He pulled his right shoulder back, pivoting on his left foot so that my Chidori just missed him, allowing him to dodge with the minimum amount of movement necessary. And yet even as he avoided the lethal attack, Kakashi never once took his eyes off the Chidori.

_Perfect._

Now came the hard part. Carefully, so that I don't end up frying my own nerves, I began channeling lightning chakra into my right arm. The change was as instantaneous as it was remarkable - where once my arm moved as slow as everything else when I viewed the world in my imperfect Lightning Release, it now responded to my commands immediately.

My right hand shot forward towards Kakashi's belt, so much faster than before that they could not be compared. And for the first time in battle, I caught a glimpse of what it felt like to master the Lightning Armour.

Yet the technique was not perfect for a reason. For even as my hand moved towards it's target, I felt my shoulder strain from bearing the pressure of its limb moving far faster than it was ever intended to. Then I felt something pop as my shoulder dislocated and pain flared in my head. But I was ready for it and didn't allow the pain to stop me, didn't allow my hand to so much as waver as I fought through the pain.

Kakashi must have noticed something was wrong because he looked away from the Chidori and glance down towards my right hand, his eye widening in alarm as he realized where it was headed. His own hand shot towards his belt as well, moving even faster that mine was, but I already had a substantial head start on him.

Then it was over.

Kakashi and I shot past each other as our momentum pulled us apart, clearing a large space between us before stopping as we both gently landed with a slight crouch, backs facing each other.

The wind blew through the now silent clearing, causing the leaves to rustle in their branches overhead.

"Not bad, I honestly didn't see that one coming." Kakashi rose up from his crouch, before he turned to me and held up the bell. He jiggled the bell once in his hand and flashed me a smile, "But you still missed."

"I didn't miss." Reaching across my chest with my left hand, I gripped my shoulder and pulled. Pain flared up in my skull like a bonfire when my shoulder popped back into place, as a sickening sound filled my ears, but I ignored them both. Managing pain was one of the very first lessons I was ever taught as a Shinobi and I have long learned to ignore it.

Rising from my crouch, I turned to face Kakashi. Flashing him my most mischievous smile, I held up the item I had succeeded in stealing off him, "I'm not stupid enough to think I could steal the bell off of you that easily, so I aimed for the next best thing."

Kakashi eye widen in genuine horror as he caught sight of what I was holding.

"I mean sure it's no bell, but I think it would do just as nicely." I waved the Icha Icha book mockingly at him before stowing it away into my side-pouch. I made sure to give him one last cheerful wave goodbye before turning away, "Well, I think I had my fill for now. See ya later Sensei."

Then I flickered away.

As soon as I was out of the clearing I leapt up onto a tree branch and began hopping from tree to tree as fast as my legs could take me. Glancing to my side, I yelled out to one of the Naruto's clones that I knew was hiding there. "Naruto, get your ass out here!"

No sooner had the words left my lips that I found myself with a blond companion by my side.

"So did you get it?" Excitement clear in her voice.

"Yes, I got it. Tell Shikamaru that I got him the bait he wanted, hurry!"

"Ok, Ok," She held up her hands, "sheesh, calm down Hikaru. Why are you panicking?"

A wave of Killing Intent washed over us, so thick it felt like we were drowning in it. Above us the sky was filled with the fluttering of wings as every birds that called the forest home fled to the skies. The world flash with the colour of lightning blue before a maddened howl, more beast than man, echoed through the woods.

"_**RAIKIRI!"**_

I gave Naruto a panicked glance, "That's why." Then I jabbed her, popping the clone so that the original could get the message.

It was then that I made my mistake. Instead of following Shikamaru's instructions and running straight ahead towards my destination, I allowed my curiosity to get the better of me and made the mistake of glancing at Kakashi with my Byakugan.

Oh how I wish I didn't.

Had you ever seen a pissed off Elite Jonin, one that was really trying to kill you? Not for a mission or duty but because he honest to god wanted nothing more than to wrap his hands around your neck and squeeze until it snaps. I did, and I'm not ashamed to say it scared the living crap out of me.

His single eye shone with pure loathing as he came after me, his mouth twisted into a hate filled snarl as foam dotted the edge of his lips. He didn't even bother tree hopping and just ran straight to me, cutting down anything that got in his way, leaving a path of destruction behind him.

_Oh Shit! _I stopped looking at the madman and began hightailing out of there as fast as I could. _Legs! Run Faster! RUN BITCH RUN!_

I broke out of the forest and leapt down into a large empty clearing that was my destination in record time, running faster than I had ever done in my life. I spotted the patch of land in the center of the clearing where I was supposed to stop and hold my ground, and quickly dashed towards it without slowing down my pace in the least. When I reached it I barely had time to stop and turn around when the trees I had just vacated blew up with a flash of lightning.

"_**GIVE ME BACK MY ICHA ICHA!"**_

The demon from hell burst out from the woods screeching like a madman. He immediately charged at me when his eyes locked onto my form, the Raikiri thrust before him like a spear.

But the moment he took one step towards me-

_***Boom***_

-ground beneath his feet blew up in a small explosion.

Once again Kakashi demonstrated why he was a first class ninja. Even as enraged as he was, he still managed to maintain enough awareness of his surroundings to react instantly. As if he had some kind of sixth sense, Kakashi leapt back almost as soon as his foot touched the ground, allowing him to avoid the worst of the blast. In the end, the only signs of damage he sustained was the slight scorch marks on the base of his pants.

"I wouldn't take another step forward if I were you," I spread my feet a bit wider, lowering my center of gravity and took one of the more defensive stances of the Gentle Fist, "This clearing is filled with-"

Kakashi didn't even wait for me to finish explaining, bending his knee he leapt into the air in an attempt get to me, avoiding the ground entirely. He cleared the space between us, feet never touching the ground, and before I could blink he was practically on top of me.

Good thing we had already planned for this.

Kunai shot out from the shadows of the woods. They came from every direction, numbering in their hundreds, filling the air with their bulk and flew towards us with all the speed of an arrow fired from a bow.

I did not bother to see how Kakashi faired against them, in fact I had already been moving before the kunai were even fired.

_Eight Trigrams Palms Revolving Heaven – Kaiten_

Chakra poured out from every single one of the 361 tenketsu points around my body as I spun in place, creating a rotating shield of chakra around me.

The kunai deflected off of its surface, sounding like rain hitting a tin roof. I maintained the shield for nearly five full seconds, only stopping when the bombardment of Kunai ended.

When I ended my rotation, I found myself surrounded by a field littered by Kunai. There were literally hundreds of them. Some lay flat against the ground, hidden among the field of grass, while others were buried tip first into the soft soil. Thankfully, the explosive tags we used were triggered by proximity to chakra not pressure, or else this whole place would have been blown sky high.

I spotted Kakashi on the far end of the clearing, only a few meters away from the edge of the woods. A log studded with Kunai lay a few meters away from me, no doubt the result from a last second _Kawarimi_. Fortunately, it looks like Kakashi has finally decided to calm down because he was actually examining the situation instead of simply attacking me.

"Do you finally feel like listening?" I called out to him, before shaking my head and sighing. "You know what? I don't really feel like explaining things to you anymore, so I'm going to tag out and leave it up to Shikamaru."

I waited for the few seconds it took for Naruto to deliver the message to Shikamaru, before I began to convey his words. "_Sigh_ \- So damn troublesome. Fine, fine, I get it, I'll explain, just stop with your complaining woman. _Sigh, _why the hell did I get mixed up in such a troublesome team. Anyways.

"Listen carefully Kakashi, right now Hikaru is surrounded by a field of Grade 1 explosive tags. Three hundred and forty two of them to be exact – three hundred and forty three if you count the one you've already triggered. The force of their explosions shouldn't be enough to kill you, but they still pack enough of a punch to blow your foot off if you're not careful.

"In addition, you're currently surrounded by Shadow Clones. Naruto has filled the woods with hundreds of them, most of which are currently circling you. They are ready to jump in and support Hikaru at a moment's notice should you try to attack him. I believe you have already witnessed how effective their long-range support can be."

When I first started speaking Kakashi had looked at me as if I had gone completely insane, but as I continued to speak his expression slowly began to change until it became that of comprehension

"You're reading his lips." Kakashi breathed out in amazement.

"Bingo." I confirmed, interrupting Shikamaru's explanation, "You'd be surprised with the amount of things you can do with the Byakugan. I'm always surprised by how much people keep underestimating its usefulness. They keep thinking that if it doesn't have any direct combat application then it's less than worthless in a fight. Well allow me clear up that misconception and tell you what I can really do with these eyes of mine.

"I can see _everything _Kakashi, and I do mean everything. I can see all that's happening in these woods, and I have been for the entire time. Since the very start of our fight I had been keeping track of Shikamaru and Naruto, never once allowing them to leave my sight. Nor have we ever stop communicating with each other. With my eyes and ability to read lips I can listen in to any commands that Shikamaru gives me, while Naruto can tell him about our situation with her clones.

"Right now Shikamaru is hidden far away and safe from you, planning and strategizing on how to take you down. While the original Naruto is by his side, updating him on the status of our fight and marking the points on the map where she had finished setting up her traps. You see Kakashi, since the very moment you set foot on the training ground, Shikamaru had given me a single command: _Stall_.

"And while I was doing just that, Naruto has turned this entire forest into her death trap – just like she did with this field here. Even now as we speak, there are dozens of her clones roaming through the woods, setting up even more traps just for you. And the best part is, I will have no trouble avoiding them because I know exactly where they all are.

"I told you didn't I? I can see _everything_. This clearing may look nothing more than an empty stretch of grassland to you, but with my eyes I can see every tag in this field as clearly as the stars in the sky. The same thing applies to all of her other traps. So you see Kakashi, from now on, you're going to have to watch every step you take or risk losing a foot, while I can roam freely without fear."

Shikamaru really was a genius. Even though we had only been put together as a team for less than a day, he had already developed several formations that allowed us to use each our unique abilities to their maximum effectiveness.

The current formation we're using is the watchtower formation. Shikamaru stays hidden until he is needed, delivering commands to both Naruto and me; me through my eyes and Naruto through her clones. This way he could focus completely on creating plans and still allow him to deliver commands to us in real-time without risking himself on the battlefield. And with Naruto's clones continuously giving him status updates, he'll know everything that's going on. In way, this was like playing a game of Shoji, with Shikamaru as the player while Naruto and I were the pieces.

I noticed that Shikamaru had started speaking again, so I stopped talking and began repeating his words. "Are you two done with your chattering? Good because I want to get this whole troublesome mess over with already and get back to sleep. Kakashi, you are forbidden to leave the clearing. Should you decide to ignore this condition then be warned that I have commanded Hikaru to set fire to your book."

Kakashi stilled, eye widening slightly as he was reminded of his precious book, before he adopted a look of feigned indifference and shrugged, "I could always replace it, it's not as if it's a rare book. You kids probably don't know about it, being underaged an all, but the Icha Icha series is a best seller, there are thousands of copies in Konoha alone. "

Again I had to wait for the few seconds it took for one of Naruto's clone to pop and deliver the message to Shikamaru, before continuing. "Don't bluff. We already confirmed that the copy Hikaru is holding hasn't been release yet. It's an early release of the newest addition to the series, and if it's destroyed you won't be able to get your hands on a copy for another two months."

When Shikamaru first proposed this plan, Naruto had asked why couldn't we simply trade the book for the bell. Shikamaru explained that when in a hostage situation – the book being the hostage in this case - the hostage takers had to establish credibility before any of our demands could be taken seriously.

If we threatened to destroy the book if Kakashi doesn't give us the bell, then what should we do if he refuses. If we follow through and destroy the book we lose our only leverage and have an enrage Jonin on our hands. And if we don't, then Kakashi will think we're only bluffing and ignore any of our demands.

No, the best thing to do was create reasonable demands. Something simple and easy for Kakashi to fulfill. Something to distract him as we set up our real attack.

And Shikamaru had just given me the signal to spring it.

"You know what?" I gave Kakashi an exaggerated shrug, "I don't want the stupid book anymore. You can have it back. Catch."

Pulling my arm back, I aimed for the spot just in front of him before throwing the book. Suspicion warred with eagerness on Kakashi's face, knowing this was too good to be true, but the prize was simply too much for him to resist and his eagerness ended up winning out.

Still mindful of the tags, Kakashi made sure not to shift his feet as he leaned forward to snatch the book out of the air. Rightfully weary for any trick or attacks, Kakashi made sure to keep his eye on me, never once lowering his guard.

But that was his mistake.

It wasn't me that he should have been looking out for, I wasn't the one going to attack.

The treetops came to life with motion just as Kakashi's fingers brushed the book's surface. They leapt from the trees as one and came raining down upon our heads. There were hundreds upon hundreds of them. The Shadow Clones came from every direction, so numerous that they blocked the sunlight from reaching us as they filled the sky before they came charging down.

The sheer number of clones was staggering. No one in the entire history of the Shinobi world had ever been able produce so many, and for a mere twelve year old girl to achieve something that even the Kage of old could not was astonishing, yet that was not what startled Kakashi. No, what Kakashi's single eye was riveted on was not on the clones themselves but what they held in their hands.

Blue spheres of destruction - spiraling balls of revolving energy.

The personal jutsu of his former teacher, the Yondaime Hokage.

"_**RASENGAN!"**_ A hundred and more voices called out as one as they thrust their arms forward, raining down death and destruction on our heads.

And _still_ Kakashi reacted.

Through the shock, through the sheer impossibility of what he was seeing, he moved, reacting to the danger. Even as he stared up at the hundreds of clones using a technique that they should have no business knowing, his hands were already forming into the seals he need to begin his counter attack-

-just as Shikamaru predicted.

"_**Shadow Possession Technique - Successful."**_

Kakashi's hands froze halfway through forming a seal, as his entire body stood rigid still. Genuine shock filled Kakashi's expression as he glanced downwards, his single eyes widening, "What?"

It was then that he saw it –

The hundreds of shadows cast by all of the clones.

Kakashi's mistake was that while he was busy defending himself from the threat above him, he failed to realize the threat that came from below.

All around us the Naruto clones landed softly on the ground, carefully placing their feet away from the traps they had planted earlier while the Rasengan dispelled form their hands.

"Someone as experience as you is no doubt familiar with my Clan's jutsu," Shikamaru's voice echoed out of the forest from my right, where he laid hidden from sight in the foliage and shadows of the trees. "So you should already know that I can extend my jutsu's range by using other shadows."

I had lied when I told Kakashi that Shikamaru was hiding far away. He had been hidden alright, but far closer than I ever let on. Waiting and ready to spring this trap when Kakashi would least expected.

Kakashi's eye traced the shadow from his feet as it stretch from shadow to shadow of a dozen and more clones before it disappeared into the dark forest, "But using other people's shadows would only increase the strain of the jutsu. You shouldn't have anywhere near enough skill or chakra needed to pull off capturing and restraining this many people."

"Normally that would be the case but only when my victims struggle. But if they remain perfectly still like Naruto's clones are doing, then holding more people would benefit me as I use their shadows to help anchor you down. Even someone like you won't be able to break out fast enough to help. I'm afraid this is checkmate, Hatake Kakashi."

I hadn't been standing idly by as Shikamaru spoke, but had been quickly racing towards Kakashi, though my progress had been slowed considerably by all of the clones that filled the field getting in my way in addition to all the traps I had to avoid. But I still managed to reach Kakashi's side just as Shikamaru finished speaking.

Kakashi was oddly silent as he watched me approach, not saying a thing as he saw me reach for the bell, it was only when I was about to grab it did he move, smiling down at me, and I instantly knew something was wrong.

I didn't even wait to see what he had in mind before I leapt backwards, trying to put as much distance between us as fast as I can. And it was a good thing I did, for only a heartbeat later-

"_**Chidori Nagashi"**_

Electricity blossomed around his form, encasing his body in a cocoon of living lightning. Clouds of smoke began erupting all over as the lightning leapt from his form and electrocuted the clones surrounding him, dispelling them instantly – along with their shadows.

Momentarily freed from the Shadow possession, but still surrounded by the tags, Kakashi didn't hesitate to place his fingers between his lips and blow.

A sharp whistle reverberated through the clearing, so loud that I wouldn't be surprised if it could be heard from miles away. And no sooner had the whistling died out that it was replaced by answering howls as Kakashi's summoned dogs leapt into the field.

Clones popped by the dozens, ringing the clearing with smoke before the sounds of explosions filled my ears as the dogs triggered the explosive tags. Not by accident either, the dogs seemed to be deliberately tripping the tags as they ran before leaping quickly away, their speed and weight allowing them to escape unharmed. A few were even knocking some of the surprised clones onto the tags, dispelling them using their own traps.

Only a few seconds later, it was over.

Twenty or so dogs encircled around the now freed Kakashi. They stood protectively by his side, ready to attack or defend in a moment's notice. Kakashi looked as composed as ever as he tucked the Icha Icha book into his pouch and smiled at us.

By my count it hadn't even been ten seconds since we had him cornered, before Kakashi flipped the table on us. Without the shadow of the clones to help him, Shikamaru was forced to withdraw his shadow and slip back into hiding. Really, Kishimoto, how much did you nerf this guy?

"You know," Kakashi looked over me and the dozen or so remaining Naruto clones. "I'm really starting to like you kids."

"Well if you like us so damn much," One of the clones spoke up with a cheeky grin, "how about you give us that bell of yours as a reward."

"Hmm," Kakashi scratched his chin and actually seemed to consider it for a moment before shaking his head. "Nice try but no dice. I don't like you that much. Besides, you guys stole my book. I'm afraid I'm going to have to discipline you for that.""

The clone closest to me turned to flash me a grin, "So I guess that means we're going to stick with the Plan A then."

Furrowing my brows at her, I asked, "Plan A? What's the hell is plan A?"

"Ass kicking of course." Naruto cracked her knuckles before leering at Kakashi, "Looks like I'm gonna have to beat you black and blue, and just take that bell off of you Sensei."

Shadows began to move in the woods around us before the figures of a hundred newly created clones walked out from the trees and into the clearing, replacing their fallen brethren and looking eager to avenge them.

The dogs, seeing the new arrivals, bared their fangs at us. Kakashi said nothing, he simply pulled out a kunai and dropped into a combat stance, having decided to take us seriously.

I too took up a fighting pose and began molding my chakra in preparation for the fight.

An unusual battle line began to form on the clearing. One half of the field was filled with clones who glared at their counterpart, the summoned dogs who formed a line across from them.

Only Kakashi and me were the odd ones out from our respective armies.

I flashed Kakashi a cocky smirk as I received Shikamaru's new orders. "_Now, let's begin round 2." _

The Dogs let loose a howl while the Narutos yelled out a battle cry as they both charged at each other and clashed.

* * *

"Kakashi, why is there a booger sticking out of my nose?"

"…Well it's not necessarily a booger. If you tilt your head to the side and squint a little it kind of looks like a nose hair-

"It's a booger Kakashi." Sarutobi Hiruzen, the Sandaime Hokage turned to look at the kneeling Jonin. He was wearing a genial look on his face that fooled no one. "I know what a booger looks like when I see one, and that" He pointed at the Hokage Monument, "is a booger sticking out of my nose. Now kindly explain to me why it's there."

The booger in question was the top half of an upside-down tree that somehow got lodged up the left nostril of Sarutobi's carved face. The leaves that hanged out of one half of his nose did look remarkably like a giant booger.

Though to be fair, Kakashi wasn't the one who lodge that thing up there, it was Naruto.

During the fight, Naruto had used one of the few ninjutsu that she had been able to learn, _Futon: Great Breakthrough, _a C-ranked wind technique that releases a sudden gust of wind. And as we discovered during training, the scale of the resulting gust of wind can vary greatly depending on how much chakra she poured into it, and during the fight…well let's just say things got a little heated and Naruto was forced to poured more chakra in that attack then she had ever done before.

A huge patch of the forest was missing, simply gone as if it was wiped out of existence. The resulting winds were so strong that most of the trees just gave way to it, splintering so badly that nothing but scraps the size of my foot remained. But that particular tree must have been rather robust because it managed to fly all the way to the Hokage monument without breaking until it crash into it.

But in a rare stroke of good luck Sarutobi didn't seem to believe we were to be blamed for the event. That Kakashi, being our Sensei, is the one responsible for it. So while Kakashi was forced to kneel like a misbehaving child in front of the Hokage we stood off to the side and silently watched. Well, Shikamaru and me were watching silently, Naruto had her arms wrapped around her belly as she laughed at Kakashi.

When Kakashi stayed sullenly silent, Sarutobi pointed with his pipe to the rest of the forest, "And what about all of this, what happened here? You do realize that despite me loaning it to you for the morning this forest is not yours alone, correct? It belongs to all the other teams as well. There are well over a hundred training grounds inside its borders when I handed it over to you but now look it all, ruined. How did you manage to do so much damage to it in a single morning I have no idea."

The forest in question was roaming with Anbu, they were all over the place. Most were putting out the raging fires that threatened to burn what was left of it down, others were defusing the thousands of traps that Naruto had littered the place with, and more than a few were trying to free themselves from traps they had accidently tripped.

As the fight kept getting dragged out, and the deadline grew steadily closer we became more than a little desperate and had begun taking drastic measures. We started using Grade 2 explosive tags instead of Grade 1, then when that didn't work we switched to Grade 3, then after that we simply tossed everything we had at the guy. At one point, Naruto had to send a few clones back to the compound to resupply, and brought back a full crate full of tags, and we ended up using every last one. In one go.

I even had to resort to firing off a few _Katon: Great Fireball Techniques, _the only fire jutsu I knew, and let's just say that it didn't do anything but help the forest burn down that much faster.

Now less than a third of the forest was left standing. Most of it had either been burned down, was currently being burned down or had been blown up and turned to craters by the explosive tags.

Sarutobi gave Kakashi an incredulous look, "This was supposed to be _Genin_ exam Kakashi, not a re-enactment of the Third Shinobi World War. What happened?"

Kakashi rubbed the back of his head and gave the Hokage an awkward smile, "They…put up a far better fight than I was led to expect that they would."

"Then you pass them Kakashi." Sarutobi sounded as he were explaining something simple to a particularly slow witted child. "You don't let the fight deteriorate to-to-to-" He waved a hand to the waste land that had once been a forest. "-I don't even know what to call this."

Sarutobi shut his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Do you realize how close I was to having a heart attack when I looked out of my window to see a tree flying by and crash into my face? As if that wasn't bad enough I almost believed we were being invaded when half the forest just blew up. One minute it was there then, poof, it was gone." The aged Hokage opened his eyes, "Did you pass them yet?"

Kakashi began to look incredibly awkward and refused to look directly at the Hokage. "…Not exactly, no."

The Hokage just stared blankly at what was supposed to be one of the greatest Jonin his village had to offer. "After all of this, you still didn't pass them?"

"…They haven't gotten the bell yet."

Sarutobi started at Kakashi as if he were the biggest idiot he had ever seen, before he whacked him in the head with his pipe. Twice.

The old man then kneeled down and snatched the bell off Kakashi's belt before lobbing it over his shoulder towards Naruto.

"There, they have it. Congratulation Jonin Hatake Kakashi, you are now the Sensei of three Genin and the squad leader of Team 7."

Kakashi tried to object, "But-"

_ *Whack*_

The Hokage lifted his pipe off Kakashi's head and began walking away. "They pass Kakashi. Deal with it." Then he stopped and spared a glance at the fiery hell the training ground has become. "Oh and Kakashi. You are forbidden from administrating the bell test ever again. You clearly have no idea how it's supposed to work."

Then the Hokage left, leaving the newly minted Genin team behind him.

And that ladies and gentlemen, was how the new team 7 was born…in a field of fire, ash and destruction where once bloomed life…Somehow I had the feeling that this wasn't going to be a one-time off thing for us either.

"Like I said…" a soot covered Shikamaru coughed out as he glanced around himself, "…this is bullshit."

* * *

***Chapter End***

**Author's Notes:**

**Dear god, I've planned out and written this entire chapter in less than 8 days and I am exhausted. Still, this is the first big fight of the story so I really hope you liked it. (sorry if the notes are a mess I'm running on fumes as I write this).**

**So how was the fight? I really wanted to convey the old Naruto feel in it, where instead of pure power ups and mountain destroying attacks of recent episodes I wanted to fill the fight full of tactics and strategy and I hope I manage to pull it off. **

**I always felt like Naruto wasted his shadow clones - they are an army and all he uses it to spam his enemies with attack, I mean they could act like scouts, turn an entire forest into an endless series of traps in a matter of seconds but all he does is spam rasengan on his enemies. such a waste of an army killing ability.**

**I remember a review asking how Naruto's character changed with Hikaru in her life - well I hope the part when she talks about her dreams answers that question a little bit.**

**Personally I always felt that Shikamaru's talents are wasted with Choji and Ino. This guy is a stratergist but those two gives him too little moves to play with (It feels like he use his intelligence to keep them alive more than anything). A guy like him can only show his true potential if you give him enough pieces to play with. With Naruto he has the equivalent of a one man army / human swiss army knife. And Hikaru is an assassin that can scout for him yet still listen to his commands from afar. ****Shikamaru's real weakness (other than combat ability) is his inability to convey the plans he thinks of to his teammates. With Hikaru's ability to read lips, all Shikamaru has to do is silently whisper them out and he will get the message no matter how far away.**

**Remember that this Shikamaru isn't the motivated person he will be later one – This Shikamaru didn't experience the defeat from the Sasuke retrieval arc or Asuma's death yet. This is still the guy who wants to be nothing more than average. He will grow of course but so far he is still the inexperienced kid from the beginning of the series.**

**Oh, and had any of you noticed how weird it is for Kurani - the Genjutsu expert - to have no one on her team to teach genjutsu to? Well, that's never made any sense to me so I gave her what I believed to be a more appropriate team.**

**Kakashi – has there ever been any character more shafted by plot than this guy? He was supposed to be a genius but in the series they just showed him as average. I mean Sasuke learned a dozen different kinds of the Chidori - Kakashi's personal Jutsu - in three years while Kakashi himself didn't in the ten years since he created the technique? Well, that ain't happening here. Kakashi is going to be as strong and talented as he was supposed to be.**

**Sorry if everything is coming out jumbled up, I'm tired as hell but I want to get this out for the weekend for all of you to enjoy.**

**So how was the chapter? How did the characters turn out (Kakashi is hard as hell to write, I don't think I've ever seen someone who is a perfect mix of smart-ass and just a plain ass yet still come out so damn likeable - plus now I know why Shikamaru doesn't show up in a lot of fics despite his popularity, writing a genius character is hard).**

**I put a lot of effort into it and I really hope you guys enjoyed it so please tell me what you think. And thanks for reading.**


	6. Chapter 6: You had one job

**Author Notes:**

** As sure some of you have already noticed this chapter is shorter than my usual ones. That's because it was originally meant to be part of a bigger one but it had been so long since I released my last chapter – mainly due to me dedicating so much time at my other story – that I decided to release this one earlier than planned as a treat and to reassure some of you that I still plan to continue this story for a long while yet.**

** This chapter is a more laid back one, one to make you laugh and enjoy yourself and it involves Team 7's first D-rank. So sit back, relax and enjoy the read.**

***Story Start***

* * *

**Chapter 6:**

**You Had One Job**

"…You had one job…"

Kakashi stared in open disbelief, his single eye as wide as I had ever seen it, locked onto what sat atop his living room table. The thing that had captured his attention so thoroughly was supposed to be, and technically still was, a living cat.

He tentatively stretched his hand out towards the 'cat', pausing for a second as his fingers neared its head, but when the cat didn't seem to react to his action he carried on and poked it on its side. When the cat didn't react at all he tried again, this time giving it a shove.

The cat did not move a muscle as the force of the shove caused it's body to tilt to one side before it swung back and began rocking on its feet from side to side like some kind of living rocking chair.

"…one job…"

Kakashi pushed the cat again, a little harder this time so that it tipped over completely. The cat made an audible '_thunk__' _as it fell onto its side on the wooden table, almost as if its body had been made from stone instead of flesh and blood.

Kakashi looked up at us, his one eye wide, filled with genuine incomprehension."…and you blew it."

We were currently in the living room of Kakashi's apartment, standing awkwardly across the table from the man as we all tried not to stare at the prettified cat named Tora. It had only been a day since our Genin examination, or as most of the village is calling it 'The day that Kakashi's crazy kids blew up a forest', and Naruto had been so excited about starting her ninja duties that she kept pestering Kakashi until he caved and gotten us our first mission.

And naturally Kakashi, being who he was, chose a mission that involved the least amount of actual work for him. As a matter of fact the lazy ninja had managed to find a D-Rank mission that required practically no involvement from him. The job he had gotten us was something only children could complete, which meant all he had to do was sit back and do nothing but wait at his apartment as we finished the job on our own.

` Or at least that was the plan before we fucked it up.

"I asked you to get a cat, a freaking kitty." Kakashi looked back down at the still unmoving cat, "How could you have possible screwed up this badly?"

It was supposed to a fairly simple and common D-rank mission; retrieve Tora the cat and bring her back to her owner, Madam Shinjimi the Daimyo's wife.

Now normally a simple job like this one would have never qualified as a D-rank mission, Daimyo's wife or not. Lost pets are generally classified as an E-rank mission, and would typically be assigned to Academy students. It was considered a good form of practice for them, learning to interact with clients and fulfill the condition they required, so that by the time they graduated and became real ninjas they would have some experience dealing with missions.

But Tora was different, for despite how she appeared she was no ordinary animal...and I meant how she appeared before we fucked up the mission and petrified her.

Tora was a part of a rare species of cats known as Nekomata, a breed that had at one point been incredibly popular among the nobles in the Capital to keep as pets. Their popularity stemmed from their ability to judge a person's character and sense out any ill intent they may have.

Unlike Kakashi's dogs, Nekomata did not have their own chakra network, nor could they talk or even understand the human language. Physically at least, they were pretty much run of the mill cats, and there was no way you could tell them apart from regulars cats just by looking at them.

But Nekomata were different from ordinary cats due to one unique trait they possessed. They were born with a natural ability to use Senjutsu.

However due to their lack of a chakra network they could not mold chakra, making them incapable of using Jutsu of any kind, but it did turn them into natural sensors, especially at sensing the negative energy in people.

For a time when this ability was first discovered having a Nekomata was all the rage among the nobles, as it was widely believed that Nekomatas could be used to spot out the corrupt and traitorous among them. However that quickly fell out of favour when every Nekomata they brought as pets kept running away. No matter what they tried, no matter how well they treated or fed the cats they would, without fail, try to run away the first chance they got.

While no one would say it to their faces, most of the general population believed that the reason why the cats kept running away was because the nobles as a whole were so corrupt that none of the Nekomatas could stand being in their presence for long.

Madam Shinjimi was one of the few Nobles who decided to keep the cats despite their habits of disappearing. Apparently she fell so in love with her cat Tora that she refused to give her up, and would send ninjas to recapture her whenever she ran away. Which tended to happen every other week or so.

The problem was, due to their ability to sense the character and ill intent of individuals, Nekomata were incredibly good at hiding from Shinobi. As a profession of assassins, almost all of the high ranked ninjas have murdered, lied or tortured people, which was why the cats could sense them coming a mile away.

While they could eventually catch them of course, sending highly trained ninjas to chase what was basically an expensive cat for days at a time was simply too much of a waste of resources to justify. Especially when you consider the ninja shortage Konoha was still suffering from after the Kyuubi attack.

The solution to the problem was a rather simple one, instead of sending adults, send children instead. Fresh out of the Academy Genin are the most innocent kind of ninja you could possibly find and because of their 'purity' they tend to have little trouble approaching Nekomata. Except for one tiny problem…

I wasn't exactly pure or innocent, now was I?

Shikamaru sighed before reaching out to pick Tora up and set her back onto her feet. The poor animal didn't even react to his touch, and I'm not sure if she was even aware what was happening around her.

Tora was a tiny thing, and could easily fit in the palm of both my hands. I had no idea why she was named Tora – _tiger –_ because she had white fur with large patches of orange dotting it along with soulful blue eyes. And when we first caught sight of her she looked like a healthy, breathing, ordinary cat.

But not anymore.

Currently the cat was petrified, stiff as solid rock. All of her hair was standing up on end, her tiny eyes wide with terror. Her jaw was hanging open in a silent unending scream while her tail stood straight up.

At first glanced she looked dead, as if she was a stuffed animal instead of a living one. Hell, even after a second or third glance she still looked dead. We only knew she was still alive because I looked her over with my Byakugan and noticed that her heart was still beating – albeit rather slowly.

"And you know what?" Kakashi blinked and pointed at the cat. "I'm not even mad. That's amazing." He turned to us, his eyes twinkling with amusement and repressed laughter. "I didn't even think it was possible to screw up a D-rank mission so badly. How did you even do this?"

"It wasn't our fault, we didn't even touch the thing." I spoke up, attempting to defend ourselves. "Look, we did exactly what you told us to do, down to the letter. I found the cat with my Byakugan, then we slowly snuck up and surrounded it. Everything was fine up to that point, it's after we jumped it that things began to go wrong. And, well…"

"The cat caught sight of Naruto." Shikamaru spoke up, picking up from where I left off.

Kakashi eyebrows shot up. "…I see. That would explain things."

Nekomata are famed for their ability to sense ill intent, so what would happened if it ran into the container of the Nine-Tailed Fox, a being that was widely believed to be the living embodiment of all the malice and hatred of the world.

"So, it saw Naruto and became so terrified that it ended up like this?" Kakashi guessed.

"…Not exactly, no." I muttered, looking away, not meeting the questioning look my answer prompted from him.

Shikamaru sighed and answered in my place, "When the cat saw Naruto it looked terrified, but was still fine, and after a few seconds of standing stock still it bolted away. Naturally we had planned for that to happen and had already blocked all of its escape routes. Unfortunately the escape route it happened to choose led it straight to Hikaru." Shikamaru shrugged. "When it got one good look at him it froze and turned into that."

Kakashi slowly looked away from the cat to stare at me, his eye disbelieving, before returning to look back at the cat a few seconds later.

"So let me get this straight." Kakashi pointed at the cat, "Tora here, a breed of cat that can sense the evil in all living beings, caught a glimpse of Naruto," he pointed at the fidgeting girl in question, "and after sensing the Kyuubi in her, which was might be the closest thing to being the living embodiment of true evil you can find in this world or the next, only caused it to run away in terror but when it caught sight of him," He then pointed at me, "Tora became so terrified that it ended up literally petrified with fear."

Kakashi scratched his chin and gave the cat an appraising look, "…That's one smart cat."

"That's what I said." Shikamaru chimed in.

"HEY!" I yelled out, offended. Come on, I knew I no angel but I wasn't anywhere nearly as bad to justify this reaction.

"Umm, Kakashi-Sensei," a timid voice came spoke up from beside me. I glanced to left to find a downtrodden Naruto anxiously shifting from one foot to the other, "We're not going to get fired over this…are we?"

I rolled my eyes at the girl, "Naruto, for the last time, we're not going to get fired as ninja's just because we failed a single mission."

"But Hikaru," she turned her wide blue eyes to me, "We didn't just fail the mission, we completely bombed it! We just killed the Daimyo's cat! His cat, Hikaru. If we can't even keep a stupid cat safe how are we supposed to rescue princesses or save entire countries?"

"How many times do I have tell you, we are ninjas Naruto. Say it with me, _nin-ja_, not samurai." I explained, "We don't _save _princesses, we assassinate them. In that sense our ability to kill helpless innocent animals shows that we hold great promise in the future for our profession." When it became apparent that my words wasn't doing anything to help ease her panic, I turned to Kakashi, "Sensei will you please tell her that we're not going to get fired."

"Hikaru's right, you're not going to get fired." Kakashi quickly assured her.

"…Really?" Naruto asked, her expression a mix of disbelief and hope. Kakashi hasn't exactly proven to be the most reliable teacher so Naruto's skepticism was more than a little justified.

"Yes, really." He nodded, looking so oddly happy as he did so that I was instantly on guard. "In fact, not only are you not going to get fired but you're going to successfully complete this mission."

"But how?" Shikamaru poked the cat, sending it rocking again, "Even if we had technically succeeded in returning the cat back alive, I doubt our client would see it that way."

"Normally you would be right." Kakashi nodded, "But you have me here with you and that makes all the difference. I'm a veteran of a thousand successful missions, and almost two hundred D-rank missions. Over the years I've learned more than my share of tricks to get out of messes like this one. And I happened to know just the jutsu to fix this."

"Really!" Naruto perked up, all traces of earlier anxiety gone, replaced with excitement. And she wondered why I kept calling her bipolar. "You're going to show us a new jutsu? What is it? A B-rank, A-rank? _Oh-Oh_, could it be an S-rank? Are you gonna teach it to us?"

"Yes, as matter of fact I am going to teach it to you." Kakashi smiled at her before standing up and walking around the table so that he stood behind the cat, near its tail. "Now what I'm about to show you three is a personal jutsu of mine, one that I created years ago. It's a secret technique, a team 7 exclusive."

His voice took an unusually serious tone as he looked us over. "There are two conditions you must all agree to if I'm going to teach it to you. The first is that you must never teach anyone outside of this team this jutsu, no matter how desperate the situation. And second, is to never, ever use it on a comrade." He looked us over again to make sure we were listening. "Understood?"

"Understood." We replied.

"Good," Then Kakashi smiled and nodded at us, all seriousness gone as if it were never there. "Now watch carefully, because I'm only going to use this jutsu once."

He turned to face the cat before he brought his hands together to form a single hand seal, _the tiger_ – a hand seal that involved holding both hands together with your fingers interlocked, expect for the index and middle finger, which were held straight up.

For some reason I could not explain, a feeling of profound dread overcame me when I saw Kakashi forming that hand seal. It stirred an old memory in the back of my mind and sent all of my instincts blaring up in alarm.

"Hidden Leaf Ancient Taijutsu Supreme Technique," A glint appeared in Kakashi's eye and I realized what was about to happen too late to do anything to stop it. "_A Thousand Years of Pain!"_

Then he shoved his fingers up Tora's ass.

The frozen cat eyes shot wide open and – MMMEE_EEE__OOOOO__**OOOOOO**__**OOOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW**_

* * *

"…You had one job."

The Sandaime Hokage was rubbing his temples with the fingers of both his hands but even as he spoke to Kakashi his eyes never left the form of poor Tora as it walked on his desk.

"…one…"

The cat was entirely wrapped up in bandages from the waist down, particularly around its ass area. In fact, its entire back half had been wrapped up so thoroughly with bandages that the poor cat couldn't even bend its back legs or twist its hips, forcing it to waddle across the desk when it wanted to move. It kinda reminded me of how a penguin would walk, making a _tap-tap_ noise whenever it walked.

Tora's eyes were wide open, so large that they resembled golf-balls and seemed to fill half of its face. If it had any eyebrows, then I was sure they would been raised up to it's hairline in surprise. Every few seconds the cat would release a heartbreaking and baffled sounding _meow_, as if it was confused and had no idea what had happened.

Seriously, if there ever was a _'what the fuck just happened'_ face, then that was it. It has been wearing that expression since the _incident_, and as far as I can tell it hasn't even blinked once the entire time since.

Poor Tora has been behaving like that for the entire time. It just kept looking around the room with wide baffled eyes, occasional letting loose another of it's confused sounding meow. And I couldn't blame the poor thing, it's not like it woke up this morning thinking that this would be the day that Kakashi would take its anal virginity. Hell, I'd be wearing the same devastated look on my face if that ever happened to me.

"…and you blew it." Sarutobi looked away from the cat and back to Kakashi, exasperation clearly written on his face. "What were you thinking?"

Kakashi was once again kneeling like a misbehaving child in front of the Hokage's desk and somehow I got the impression that this was a common scene between these two. I guess after the Fourth Hokage's death it was Sarutobi who took over as Kakashi's disciplinarian. Naruto, Shikamaru and me were lined up a little bit behind our insane Sensei, so we had a front row seats to the entire thing.

Behind Sarutobi, a long row of windows filled the back wall, granting us a clear view of Konoha. You could even see almost the entire village from up here, including my house and the training ground that we devastated during yesterday's exam. Though it already started to look much better than it had when we last seen it.

All the fires have long been put out and the crater that dotted the place have been filled up and levelled through the liberal use of earth jutsu. Even a good portion of the burned down trees have been replaced with new ones, something that could have only been possible with the help of a certain green-thumbed Anbu.

Speaking of Anbu, I could hear the sound of their muffled laughter coming from directly above me, where the Squad of Anbu task with guarding the Hokage hid behind the secret panels on the ceiling.

I had known about the Anbu that were hidden up there for a while now, since my very first visit into the Hokage's office, but for all the years I knew of them I had never heard so much as a peep out of them, not once. They were supposed to be the Hokage's silent guards, unheard and unseen until they were needed.

But for the last five minutes or so, ever since we began verbally reciting our report, non-stop snickering could be heard coming from them, completely ruining whatever mental image I previously held of them. Then again, I couldn't quite blame them. Had I not been personally involved in this mess I'd be laughing my ass off too.

Kakashi rubbed the back of his head and gave the Hokage an awkward laugh. "…I was planning on demonstrating that particular technique during my Genin exam yesterday but I never got the chance. What with the explosions and all. So when an opportunity presented itself I couldn't resist."

And just like that, I lost whatever sympathy I had for the guy.

That bastard was going to use the thousand years of pain on us! Oh who the hell was I trying to kid? The sadistic prick was going to aim for _me, _I know it. I never thought I was going to say this but thank god we blew up the forest when we did, had the fight lasted any longer than I may have been the one sitting in Tora's place right now.

My spirit broken along side my anus.

"Kakashi," Sarutobi pinched the bridge of this nose as he took a deep calming breath, "What am I supposed to tell Madam Shinjimi about what happened to her cat?"

As if Tora knew we were talking about her, it let out another heartbreaking meow as it's wide eyes glanced around the room.

…Actually, that was a very good question. How the hell are we going to explain why we had to bandage her cat's ass without coming off as completely insane?

"Jiji," Naruto spoke up, interrupting the two. Naruto had been looking rather nervous the entire time we were her and the weak smile she gave the Hokage reflected her emotions, "We...are we in trouble?"

The old man paused, surprised, before his expression melted into a fond smile and he chuckled. "No Naruto, you're not in any trouble. Going by the reports you've all given me none of this was your or your teammate's fault. Just _his_." He thrust a finger towards Kakashi. "Your Sensei is the one who failed to take the Kyuubi into account when choosing the mission. And he was the one who made the situation worse by…" he paused, no doubt searching for a more polite way of saying '_shoving his fingers up a cat's ass_', "…traumatizing Tora more than she already was."

The effect of the Hokage's reassurance was instantaneous.

"Yes!" Naruto cheered, throwing her arms into the air, "For once, I'm not the one in trouble. That's awesome!"

Then, as if to demonstrate just how much respect and loyalty Kakashi had earned from his new students, Naruto pointed towards the kneeling Kakashi and barked out a laugh, "Ha! You hear that Scarecrow? Jiji is going to punish your lazy ass. You're going to really get it now."

"Yes, as matter fact he is going to 'get it'." Sarutobi said genially as he reached down into one of drawers of his desk and pulled out a pipe. He made a show of examining his pipe as he spoke, "You have disappointed me Kakashi." before setting the pipe down on the desk in front of him.

Kakashi eyed the thing as if it was a snake.

"Now why don't you kids hurry back home?" Though the words were for us, Sarutobi's eyes were locked onto Kakashi alone, who had broken into a sweat under the old man's gaze, "I have a few things I need to discuss with young Kakashi here, particularly about his recent behaviour and how inappropriate it is now that he is a Jonin-Instructor. I'm afraid this discussion will take a while and as such Kakashi will be unavailable to you for the next several hours. Team 7 may disband for the day."

We didn't need to be told twice. So after a respectful bow goodbye from Shikamaru and me, while Naruto just waved, we quickly hurried out of the room. And just as we shut the door behind us, a familiar noised sounded out of the office.

_*Whack*_

You know, it was disturbing to realized that even though I had been reincarnated into an anime world after I was murdered by my own son and now searched for a method to ascend into God-hood, I still wasn't the craziest person in this team.

* * *

_***Story End***_

** A little short compared to my usual fair but I hope you enjoyed it. I honestly had a grand time writing it. I've also already have the next chapter planned out so no one needs to worry about me dropping this story any-time soon (I actually have several possible ending already planed out though that's still MANY arcs away).**

** Anyway that's all for now.**

** Be sure to tell me what you thought about the chapter and thanks for reading.**

**Ps. For those of you asking the Tenseigan does not exist in this world. Anything not in the Manga will not appear in this story.**


	7. Chapter 7: What Lies Hidden Beneath (1)

**Chapter 7:**

_**What Lies Hidden Beneath The Leaves**_

_(First half)_

* * *

I had always found it weird how some people looked so different from what they weighed. During my past life, I once had a classmate that had been a total bean pole, the skinniest kid I knew. The boy had been so tall that he towered over the rest of the class but was as slender as a twig. He was so thin that I could hold both of his wrists in one hand, the guy was practically anorexic. Yet despite that the kid had somehow managed to outweigh me. It could have been his height coming to play or maybe he had more muscles under those baggy shirts he used to wear than I gave him credit for but put him on a some scales and he would somehow manage to outweigh all but the largest boys in class.

Then there was the opposite end of the spectrum. Not so much here in the Elemental Nations, but back in my old world obesity was beginning to become a serious problem. And among those people there several individuals who, how should I put this lightly, wore extra large clothing yet somehow were much lighter than I would have expected them to be given their bulky bodies.

What I was trying to say is that there were a lot of people out there who were much lighter than they appeared to be.

And Kakashi was not one of those people.

Ignoring the ways my lungs burned with each breath I took, I forced my aching arms to straighten and pushed myself off the ground. Holding the plank position for a moment, I sucked in another lungful of air and, ignoring how much my nose itched as sweat kept dripping off of it, I lowered myself back to ground before repeating the cycle and pushed myself up again.

"How much does your fat ass weigh?" I wheezed out between breaths as I forced myself to finish another push-up.

"I resent that." With my Byakugan turned on, as it always was during training, I could tell that Kakashi's single eye never looked away from the book he was reading from his place on my back. "I'll have you know that I do not have a fat ass. As a matter of fact, my ass consists of 70% pure muscles, 20% pure _fine_ and 10% sheer awesome, making it a certified 100% badass. And it is not, in any way, fat."

"Then how come you weigh so god damn much?" I groaned back, forcing myself to work through the burn. After all the training I had suffered through during my second childhood, something as easy as push-ups was child's play for me. With chakra to enhance my body, I could have burned through a hundred of these without breaking so much as a single sweat. Or I would have been able to if I didn't have a fully grown man sitting on my back who, thanks to a combination of dense muscles and the equipment he carried, weighed a whole lot more than he looked.

"That's because of all the awesome that I'm carrying," Turning a page, Kakashi giggled perversely at something he read before answering, "it's clear to me that all of that awesome is too much of burden for a kid like you to carry, so it's weighing you down."

"Are you sure your not heavy because you're so full of shit?" I paused speaking as I forced myself through another push-up. "Because that's all I'm hearing every time you open your mouth."

"The only piece of shit around here is the one that's clinging to the bottom of my ass," Kakashi absentmindedly ruffled my hair, "Though keep trying with the comebacks, you might even get good enough to give me a challenge some day."

Instead of rising to the clear provocation, I resisted the temptation and decided to save my breath instead by ignoring Kakashi. The training was hard enough as it is without his wisecracking added in.

For the next few minutes, the Team 7 training ground was almost blissfully silence. Nothing could be heard but the sound of my low panting and the quiet muttering of Naruto and Shikamaru from the other side of the training field. It was actually kind of a nice change of pace after the all of the hectic days I've to go through since becoming a Genin.

Naturally, Kakashi had to ruin it.

"How did you learn it?" My Sensei asked me out of the blue.

"How did I learn what?" I grunted out, trying and failing to pretend that my nose didn't itch as much as it did. The temptation to stop and scratch it was almost overwhelming, but I resisted. Instead, I focused on lowering myself as close to the ground as possible before pushing myself up again, trying to get the most of my workout.

Gray hair filled the front of my vision as Kakashi leaned over my head, looking me straight in the eyes. "The Rasengan, how did you learn it?"

That actually caught me off guard, and I was forced to pause halfway through another push-up to process what he said. When I realized how guilty that made me look I forced myself to continue, "What makes you think I even know how to use the Rasengan? It's Naruto's technique, ask her."

"I did," Kakashi straightened up and crossed his legs, making himself more comfortable on the middle of my back.

"And?" I asked, giving him so much of my attention that I hardly noticed the exertion of the workout anymore as I completed another round of push-ups.

"She told me she learned it from a dream." Kakashi let out a thoughtful hum as he scratched his chin through his face mask. "Which reminds me, I'm going to have to teach Naruto how to lie properly. She's really terrible at it, isn't she?"

"That she is." I agreed as I continued with my workout. While Naruto has always been good at bluffing whenever she needed to, she had never been able to get the knack of lying, at least not straight to your face. It was her eyes, they were too emotional and always seemed to show what she was thinking. "But that doesn't explain why you think I would know anything about the Rasengan?"

"Well, she had to learn it from somewhere. Naruto too much of kinesthetic learner to create her own jutsu. The Rasengan is far more complex than it looks, there is no way she could have figured out that theory behind it on her own. That means someone had to teach it to her and as far as I know, there are only two people alive that are supposed to know the technique. One of them is me and the other was the Fourth's Sensei, Jiraiya." Kakashi flipped through another page, trying to appear casual though I had no doubt he had his complete focus on me, "Jiraiya-sama hasn't been in the Village for a long time now, years if I remember correctly, and I know I haven't taught it her, so that only leaves you."

"Again, why me?"

"Well, out of all the people that she hangs around with, you are the only one that has a habit of stealing other people's techniques." He casually pointed out and I knew he was talking about the Chidori. "So quit stalling and spill. How did you learn it?"

Were I not so out of breath I might have sighed. I guess it was too much to hope that the Rasengan wouldn't be traced back to me. And I knew there was no way I could talk my way out of this without giving him a reasonable answer, not when Kakashi was so invested in figuring out the mystery. That he waited until nearly the end of my training to spring the question, at a point where I was too exhausted to properly think up of a lie, was proof that.

It was a good thing then that I had prepared for this possibility when I decided to teach Naruto the jutsu.

"It was the Kaiten."

Kakashi's face popped back into the front of my vision again, as he leaned over my head to look me in the eye. That was something that I had always noticed, even though other people knew I could watch them no matter where around me they stood with my Byakugan, they still tried to make eye contact when speaking. "The Gentle fist technique that's exclusive to the Hyuuga main house? What does that have to with anything?"

"Everything, the Kaiten works using the same basic principles as the Rasengan. Both techniques require the user to release a large amount of raw chakra before using it to create a rotating sphere of chakra." I paused in the middle of a push-up so that I could talk without interruption.

"The only major difference between the two is that the Rasengan is used for offensive purposes while the Kaiten is used primarily for defense. Well that, and also a Kaiten user needs to use his entire body to help create the rotation while the Rasengan is done purely through chakra manipulation. Once I realized that, it was easy to reverse engineer the Rasengan and figure out how the technique worked."

Kakashi scratched his chin thoughtfully as he thought over what I just told him. And while I was lying through my teeth about how I learned the Rasengan, everything else I said was true. It was legitimately possible to discover the secret of the Rasengan through the Kaiten. I was pretty sure that the only reason no other Hyuuga ever bothered to try and learn it before is because there was no point, there were plenty of other Gentle Fist techniques that were just as useful and far easier to learn than the Rasengan. Even I only went through the effort of learning it for Naruto's sake.

"Hmm, that's certainly possible I supposed." Kakashi mused, not sounding convinced. "Still, having a theory and actually learning it are two different things. The Rasengan is a difficult jutsu to use and it isn't something so simple that you can learn just by having a rough idea of how it works."

That was true, there was a very good reason why I avoided using the Rasengan when possible, preferring the Chidori or the strikes from the Gentle Fist over it. It was simply too hard to use.

There are three ways that a person's chakra capabilities could be measured with. The first was chakra supply; simply put it was the total amount of raw chakra you had in your body. The second was chakra capacity, which was the amount of chakra you could release in any given moment. This determines which level of jutsu you could use. To use high-level techniques such as A-rank jutsu, you needed to have a high chakra capacity. It didn't matter how much chakra you had, if you couldn't pour enough of it into a jutsu fast enough then most of the higher rank jutsu would be beyond you.

The there was chakra density. Chakra density effected the size and intensity of a jutsu. The denser your chakra was, the more potent it's effect. Denser chakra would cause a fire technique to burn more fiercely, or a wind jutsu to blow more violently. Using the _Katon: Great Fireball jutsu_ as an example, the larger your density the larger and hotter the fireball.

With only a few exceptions, chakra density didn't vary much from person to person, but that was fine because you didn't need to be born with naturally dense chakra to have it, that's what molding chakra is for. Before casting a jutsu, you can gather and fold chakra into self while it's still inside you before using it, thus 'thickening' it. Most Chuunin only needed a fraction of a second to double or triple the density of their chakra, so most of the time a person's natural chakra density was unimportant.

However, when it came to the Rasengan your chakra density made all the difference.

The Rasengan was basically nothing more but pure chakra condensed into a sphere then spun in place at a high speed. And while it was the rotation speed the allowed it to 'grind', it was the chakra density that hardened it enough to make it work. Think about it, if the Rasengan was less density then, lets say a bone, the Rasengan would be the one that shatters instead of an enemy's rib.

That was the real reason why the Rasengan was so hard to learn, the sheer amount of chakra density that was needed to get it to work was massive. When I tried to cast the technique, I needed to fold my chakra a dozen times over to make it work, which was a ludicrous amount. Even the Chidori only needed me to fold my chakra twice.

It was for this very reason that Naruto was so good with the technique.

Naruto's chakra was dense, ridiculously so. While most people needed to thicken their chakra to make a jutsu work, Naruto had to do that opposite. She had to 'thin' it out or else her chakra would simply overpower any jutsu under B-Rank that she tried it on. And while this may have been a hindrance in most cases, when it came to the Rasengan her chakra density was just perfect.

Naruto's chakra was already so dense that she didn't need to thicken it and simply use it as it is. And after only a few short weeks of practice she had been able to summon a full formed Rasengan into her hand in the blink of an eye.

I wasn't certain but I think the Rasengan was the only jutsu that Naruto had ever managed to learn faster than me, and if it wasn't, then it certainly was by the biggest margin. I needed a good twelve months to learn the bloody thing while Naruto, just like as she had in the Manga, had been able to get it down after a month. No wonder Jiraiya had been so impressed, that just wasn't natural. It was almost unfair how ridiculously strong her chakra network was, even at twelve years old I didn't think that there was anyone out there could match her.

Embarrassing enough, during training I had to resort to using the two-handed style of Rasengan that the original Naruto had to use in the show. It was the only way I could finally learn the thing. I swear Naruto laughed so hard at seeing me use 'training-wheels' as she put it that she almost hyperventilated.

Even now, she could mold a fully formed Rasengan in less than a fraction of the time I did. Her chakra density gave her that much of an advantage.

It was only after I had tried learning the Rasengan that I began to get an idea about how talented the Fourth must have been. For him to fold so much chakra so fast, his chakra control had to be amazing. Not to mention his chakra supply. Due to its density the Rasengan required a large amount of chakra to cast, a good bit more than even the Chidori.

I had always wondered why Kakashi never bother with the Rasengan but now I knew, it was simply too hard to use. I could cast a Chidori far faster than the Rasengan and at a fraction of the chakra cost to boot. Even if you factor in the screeching sound that gave the Chidori it's name, it was still more useful for me than the Rasengan was. Especially now that, thanks to Kakashi's guidance, I was getting even faster at forming the Chidori with ever passing week.

"I used balloons." I finally told Kakashi.

"Balloons?" He asked, arching an eyebrow in obvious bewilderment.

"Yes, balloons," I confirmed. "That's how I trained myself until I could mold the Rasengan. I first started practising on water balloons, trying to pop them while using only pure chakra. That helped me learn how to rotate my chakra. When I figured out how to do that and still hadn't been able to form a Rasengan, I decided to up the difficulty and switched to rubber balls. That taught me how to make my chakra denser. Once I was finished with that I was technically able to mold a Rasengan but it wasn't any good. It kept falling apart whenever I tried using it on something solid, it seemed that I wasn't able to hold it's shape together well enough. So next, I decided to combine both lessons and used a normal balloon but this time, instead of trying to pop it, my goal was to form a Rasengan inside the balloon without bursting it. This taught me how to hold it's shape. Once I had completed with all three of those steps, presto, I had finally been able to form a Rasengan. After that, it was rather easy teaching Naruto. Too easy actually, she ended up learning it far faster than I did."

Kakashi was giving me an odd look, something between a cross of amazement and suspicion, as if he couldn't believe what I was saying yet couldn't think of an alternative but to believe me. "…And you came up with this training method all on your own."

"No, I learned the technique from a comic book that teaches kids about secret ninjutsu techniques. Of course I thought of the idea myself." I snarked back and unlike with Naruto, I knew my blank white eyes wouldn't give me away when I lied. There was a reason why we Hyuugas were so damn good in poker. "Why? Where else would I learn it?"

"Nowhere, I was just…surprised by how similar it was to another a training method someone I knew thought of." And with the final comment, Kakashi ended the conversation and his head soon disappeared as he straightened back up into his seat on my back.

"Which reminds me." Now that Kakashi's interrogation was finished, I had nothing to distract me from the state my body was in and I quickly became aware of how exhausted my I was. While I was doing a good job at keeping it off my voice, there was no way I was going to give Kakashi the satisfaction of seeing how much of a toll his training was taking on me, Kakashi, like his dogs, can smell weakness that way, but simple truth of the matter was that I had long since reached my limit. My arms were trembling so badly that I knew they were about to give out on me any second now. "How much longer do I have to keep doing these pushups?"

"Hmm?" Kakashi glanced down at me, blinking in confusion as if he was surprised to find me still training. "Oh, you're still doing that? You were finished almost five minutes ago." I felt a hand pet my head as if I were a dog, "Though it is nice to see you so eager to complete my training."

"Oh you are such a dic-" The rest of my words were cut off as my arms decided to pick that very moment to give up the chase, and I had the breath knocked out of me when I collapsed onto the ground.

Effortlessly hopping off my back, Kakashi sat himself down on the ground beside me and returned to reading his book. "And this is exactly why you need to work on your upper body strength duckling. If it was Gai's student, he would have finished a hundred more reps then you."

"Lee would have finished a thousand reps, then start doing a thousand back-flips, followed by a thousand more squats and even after all of that he would still be asking for more. And that's exactly why Lee is a masochist." I let out a groan as I flipped onto my back, enjoying the cool breeze as it swept over my body. "And I'd much rather be a sadist thank you very much…kind of like you, now that I think about it."

Kakashi nodded wisely, eyes never leaving the book, "Yes, it always pays to be more like me."

I was way too tired to bother with thinking up of a comeback, so instead I just laid down on my back and allowed my self to enjoy my well earned rest, the painful burning in my arms slowly fading away until it turned into an oddly satisfying ache, the type that could only be found following a particularly strenuous exercise.

The rare moment of tranquillity I was enjoying however was destroyed not a minute later by the sound of Naruto's excited yells. It was little moments like these that made me appreciate what a blessing the Byakugan was, because right then I didn't think I had it in me lift a finger, let alone muster the energy needed to turn my head and look at what had gotten her so rallied up this time. So I used my still active Byakugan instead, and with a brief thought focused my sights on Naruto and Shikamaru, who were undergoing their own training in the opposite side of the practice ground.

"Boss, you have attack, attack I say! The group at the top right is weak, attack it. Offence is the best defense, so don't hesitate and charge!"

"No stupid, _defense_ is the best defense. That's why they call it defense and not…something else. Boss, don't listen to her, your main group is too unstable. Build up your defense before you do anything or else he'll tear you apart."

"Will you two idiots shut up!" Naruto reached up and shoved the faces of her two clones away from her, not even realizing the implication of what calling her own clones idiots meant. "I'm trying to think here and you're not helping."

Satisfied that they'll stay quiet for the time being, Naruto turned back to the board game, scowling down at the pieces. After a time, she reached into a bowl and pulled out a white playing stone before placing it down onto the wooden Go board.

Her two clones leaned forward, eager to see what move she played. Their eager expressions however were soon replaced with confusion, then outrage before they both threw their arms in the air and yelled in out in indignation.

"Oh come on Boss, I said attack the right side, the _right, _not the left. You know which side is right, don't you? It's the hand you hold your chopsticks with."

"Boss, why do you keep doing this to us?" The other clone asked as she crossed her arms and glaring at her true self. "If you're not going to listen to either one of us then why did you bother summoning us for in the first place?"

"Because I'm getting my butt kicked here that's why." Naruto groused, never taking her eyes off the board. "I've heard that two heads are better than one, so three must be even better. Biggest mistake I ever made."

A clicking sound soon followed as Shikamaru placed a black stone onto the board. The lazy Nara barely glanced at the move Naruto played before he made one of his own. Despite participating in one of the few activities I had ever seen him eager for, Shikamaru didn't appear to be enjoying the game as he leaned back with a tried sigh, "I know I was the one who asked you for a game but it's kind of hard to take you seriously looking like that."

Naruto snorted and dropped her head into a palm, her elbow propped up on the ground next to her, "Does it look like I wanted to be stuck like this? Do you have any idea how uncomfortable it feels having so much sand in my pants? It sucks."

Right now Naruto was seated across from Shikamaru, a Go board placed between them. Though 'seated' may not have been the proper word seeing as Naruto was buried up to her chest in the ground. She was buried so deeply that the ends of her blonde locks ended up pooling on the ground behind her.

"Besides," Naruto raise an eyebrow as she gave Shikamaru a look, "it's not like you're in any position to talk."

Shikamaru shot her a baleful look from where he too was buried in the ground across the Go board from her, "Troublesome." He groused and waved a tired hand over the board, "Just shut up and play."

This time Naruto was quick to response, ignoring her clones groans of complaints when they saw the move she played, and looked over her shoulder, "Hey Kakashi-Sensei. How much longer do we have to stay like this?"

"Until you can dig yourself out of course." Kakashi replied, still engrossed in his book. 'Icha Icha – Harem Wars in a world filled with girls' must have been a particularly good addition to the series because this must have been the fifth time Kakashi has gone through it since it's official release a week ago.

"And I told, I already can." As if to demonstrate, Naruto easily plunged her fingers into the hard ground and gouged out a fist full of earth.

"Without using your hands," Kakashi replied, not bothering to look up. "You're supposed to use chakra to dig yourself out, there is no point if you brute strength yourself out of there. Release your chakra at a steady stream in the right frequency to soften the ground around you by turning it into sand, then you should be able to slither your way out. This is training, so make sure to do it properly."

"But this is not fair." Naruto pouted petulantly and pointed at me, "Why do we get the hard training while Hikaru gets off easy?"

By this point, I had been able to regain enough energy to raised my head up and glared at her, trying to ignore the stinging of my eyes as beads of sweat dripped into it. "Are you blind woman?" Giving her my best glare, "What part of this looks like I'm getting off easy?"

"It's just push-ups, what's so hard about that? I can do ten thousand of them without breaking a sweat, they're so easy." Naruto retorted while being completely serious, unable to understand the absurdity of what she had just said. "I don't see what you're complaining about when you get off so lightly.

"Not every one of us can be a stamina freak like you," I explained as I dropped my head back down onto the ground. "To the rest of us, doing endless repetition of push-ups non-stop is hard work."

When we had first gotten to know each other as children, Naruto never seemed to understand why I seemed to tire out after only an hour or two for playing. In fact, she always appeared to be downright baffled whenever I told her I needed a break, almost confused as if she couldn't comprehend what I was trying to say. And it took me a long while to figure out why.

Naruto did not get tired, _ever_.

Mentally sure, but physical it was almost impossible, her body would simply not give out. The more you push her, the more energy she seemed to draw out from somewhere. It was as if there was literally no end to her stamina.

When Naruto said that she could do a few thousands push-ups easy, she actually meant it. In her mind, there was no difference between a single push-up or a thousand other than the time it took to complete them. Overworked muscles were not a problem for her, her healing factor would kick in and fix that up as soon as her muscles were damaged. So she could literally keep going and going like some kind of living embodiment of the energizer bunny.

Which is why she never seemed to understand what it meant to get tired.

How do you explained exhaustion to someone who never felt it before? How do help a child understand that bodies have limits when hers simply didn't have one. Fatigue and exhausted were completely foreign concepts to Naruto that till this day, she had trouble understanding.

"At least what you're doing is better than this," She waved her hand to where she was buried in the ground, before sending Kakashi a pleading look, "Hey Kakashi-Sensei, can't I switch places with Hikaru?"

"No," was Kakashi's instant reply. "Now enough complaining my little duckling and get back to training."

"But I don't understand, how is any of this supposed to be training?"

With my Byakugan constantly on during training, something that I had been doing for years in an attempt to improve my stamina with it, I was able to afford a clear view of Kakashi as he lower his book to give Naruto a tired look, "Like I've already explained, this training is meant to increase your earth affinity."

"And I understand why he needs to learn it," She nodded towards Shikamaru, "He has a natural affinity to earth, but I'm wind. So why – HEY!" Naruto pointed towards one of her clones, "I saw that. Now put it back."

The clone in question looked as if she had been caught with her hand in the cookie jar, which was not too far from the truth as she had stolen one of Naruto's playing stones and was about to place it on the board. "But Boss-"

"I said," Naruto narrowed her eyes, cutting her off, "put it back."

"Oh, fine!" The clone huffed out, dropping the piece back into the bowl before turning away with her arms crossed. "Go ahead and lose, see if I care."

"Like I was saying," Once Naruto was certain her clones would behave, she continued, "Why do I have to bother with training my earth affinity?"

"So I can begin to teach you an earth jutsu. The _Doton – Moguragakure no jutsu _to be precise._"_

Moguragakure no jutsu – _hiding like a mole technique_ – was perhaps the most stupidly named jutsu in the entirety of the ninja world, but nevertheless it was also an incredibly useful one. It allowed users to dig through the earth by temporary turning the ground around them into fine sand. And despite it being officially listed as a C-rank, the chakra requirement was closer to B-rank or even A-rank depending on how long you stayed underground, the constant stream of chakra you needed to maintain the jutsu was a large drain. That would obliviously not be an issue for Naruto while Shikamaru's natural earth affinity should be enough to cut that chakra cost down.

"Don't you want to learn how to move underground?" Kakashi asked.

Naruto's reply was almost immediately. "I do!" she affirmed excitedly, "moving underground would be awesome. Can you imagine how many more traps I could make or how much easier it would be for me to hide." Mentally, I sent a prayer to all of the poor souls that are unlucky enough to run into Naruto on a battlefield. Near endless waves of hidden clones that can attack you from both above and below while you tried to navigate through a minefield of traps. Poor bastards will never have a chance. "But what I don't understand is why do I have to improve my earth affinity to learn it. I've seen Hikaru use several different types of elemental jutsu but he has never trained anything but his lightning affinity."

"That's because our little genius here is actually good in ninjutsu," Kakashi reach out and ruffled my hair like a dog, "now aren't you boy?"

I swear if I still wasn't so out of breath I would have said something nasty to the man. Instead, I had to settle for biting his fingers when they strayed too close to my mouth. Though I only ended amusing the jerk when he pulled his fingers back at the last second and I found myself biting nothing but air instead.

"Nice try ducky, better luck next time." Kakashi patted my head one more time before looking back to Naruto, "But you on the other hand, aren't so good in ninjutsu, now are you?"

Naruto looked away with a frown but didn't refute him. "It's not my fault that those stupid jutsu don't work."

"Actually it is totally your fault." Kakashi countered. "You chakra control is so terrible that most of the time the jutsu just fall apart at the seams."

"Anyway," Naruto, cheeks turning red, changed the subject, "my point is why do we have to train this way? Can't we just skip the affinity training part, go straight to the good part and practice the jutsu itself."

Realizing that Naruto wasn't going to stop pestering him until he gave her a proper answer, Kakashi sighed and shut his book, stowing it away in his side pouch as he turned to give Naruto his full attention.

"Well my annoying little chatter mouth of a duckling," Naruto poked her tongue out at the insult. "Normally you would be right, I shouldn't be training your earth affinity for a single jutsu, the process just takes too long to get any real results to be worth it. And had I been trying to teach you any other earth jutsu I wouldn't have bothered with it, but this is different. The _Doton – Moguragakure no jutsu _is not a complicated jutsu in terms of chakra manipulation by any means, it's almost stupidly simple. All you need to do is figure out how to use your chakra to soften the earth and that's it, nothing else. And since that's basically the exact same thing as the basic levels of earth affinity training, learning one means learning the other."

Since Shikamaru has been slacking off at training his affinity, this basic training will actually be good practice for him. Naruto on the other hand has already trained her wind affinity to a high level, having endless supply of chakra to call on helped speed up the wind affinity training process wonderfully, so it wouldn't be a bad idea at this point to get her started on her second affinity.

"But luckily you only have to complete the very basics of earth affinity training to learn the technique." Kakashi continued. "After you got that part pat down the rest will be easy, all you need is a little bit of practice and your done. There is a reason why over half of the ninjas in Iwa know this jutsu. Of course you'll still need years of proper training to use the jutsu to it's full potential, but if you just want to hide by burying yourself a few feet in the ground or travel underground for a couple of dozen meters than at the rate the both of you are going, Shikamaru and you should be able to get good enough to do that in about, oh a couple of months or so of training."

"Then isn't there a better way to train my earth affinity?" Naruto made a face, "I keep getting dirt in my pants and I can't even do anything to scratch it, and it really itches too. Are you sure there isn't a better way?"

"There isn't," Kakashi replied as he pulled his book out and flipped it open. "Well there is, but as tempting as it is to bury you head first into the ground and watch you kick your legs in panic as you run out of air, I don't think that Hokage will find it as funny as I would if I suffocated you."

"Ok, Ok, I get it." Naruto grumbled and turned back to board game, slamming a stone down in frustration. "I'll learn the stupid earth affinity. But I still say this makes me look like a potted plant rather than a ninja."

"Oh, it does." I snickered at the girl. "Trust me little sunflower, it does."

"Alright, I understand why the Boss her has to be buried in dirt," One of Naruto's clones spoke up and pointed at me, "But why does Hikaru get to cop out of the training. He doesn't know how to use the Moguragakure no jutsu_." _The clone paused, shooting the real Naruto a questioning look, "He doesn't know it, does he Boss?"

"No I don't." I answered the clone. "And that's because I can't use it."

Naruto, the real Naruto that is, looked up in surprised, "How come? I thought this would have been easy for you."

"That's because I have a natural lightning affinity. Naruto, think of it this way, if learning a new jutsu is hard and learning a jutsu outside of your element affinity is stupidly hard, then learning a jutsu that clashes with your element is unbelievably stupidly hard to learn. And for someone with a powerful natural lightning affinity like me, earth jutsu are the hardest type to learn." I explained to my blonde haired friend, "While I _can_ use a couple of earth jutsu, I not very good with them and you can't afford to be anything less than perfect with a jutsu like the Moguragakure. If I screw up with that technique then I'd end up being buried alive, either crushed to death or trapped underground with no air. And since neither prospect is in any way appealing to me I'm going to have to take a pass on learning the jutsu."

"But doesn't Kakashi-Sensei have a Lightning affinity too?" Naruto pointed out. "So how come he knows the jutsu?"

"That's because he's a Jounin, and all Jounins are expected to have at least two affinities." Actually, I think Kakashi had more than two. "You can get around the affinity problem if you have more that one well developed affinity but since training an affinity takes so long, that's simply not an option for me."

"Exactly," Kakashi chimed in. "Which is why I designed a completely different training program for Hikaru than the rest of you. While you and Shikamaru will be broadening your skill-set and learn earth elemental techniques, Hikaru here will concentrate one mastering his lightning techniques and perfecting his current fighting skills."

And he had, he actually had. I couldn't believe it at first, but Kakashi really did create a training program for us all.

It had been over two weeks since the end of our disastrous first D-rank mission, and since then life has begun to fall into a pattern. Every morning with the crack of dawn we would all meet up at our training ground at 7 am sharp, with Kakashi now only a half an hour late rather than the usual three or four hours. I had no idea what the Hokage did to Kakashi that day in the office, but whatever it was it worked wonders because ever since that day Kakashi actually began training us, and proper ninja training too.

For all of the shit I talked about the guy, Kakashi clearly knew what he was doing when it came to teaching. The workouts the he developed for us was gruelling and backbreaking stuff, even by my standards. Sparring, team exercises, ninjutsu training, chakra control exercises, physical training, strategy, the works. It was shocking to discover that Kakashi was a _really_ good teacher.

Though I would never admit it to his face of course, the man had too big an ego as it was without me inflating it even more.

Of course Kakashi being Kakashi, he still tried to skip out of training whenever possible, making up of the most convoluted excuses to delay or postpone training entirely in favour of lazing about, so we often had to hunt him down and drag him here before he would be willing to start training us. But once we got him going the man would do his best to train us.

It was one of those things that I could never figure out about Kakashi. I wanted to blame it on Kakashi simply being lazy, but that didn't hold water when I took into account the sheer amount of effort he puts into thinking up his excuses, it honestly outweighed the work he would have needed to do if he just up and trained us.

Plus while Kakashi is generally an easy going person as you could find once training begins he turns into a total slave-driver, pushing me and my teammates to the limit every time until we all but collapse in exhaustion. It was a total contrast to his usual self, I swear it was like we were training under Maito Gai.

When I brought it up to the others Shikamaru just shrugged and guessed that Kakashi just didn't want to train us but if he felt he had no choice in the matter. And if that was the case then it was better to just get it over and done with and do a good job, rather than half-ass it and having to do it all over later when you messed up.

I had a different idea to why Kakashi behaved like he did. Maybe it was because I knew a little bit of his history and it coloured my view of him, but I don't think Kakashi liked the idea of training us. And by us, I don't mean Naruto, Shikamaru and me specifically but as in kids in general. I think after the childhood he had, the idea of turning kids into child soldiers like he had been was unappealing.

Naruto just thought the guy was just being an ass.

Speaking of people trying to skip out of training, Kakashi wasn't the only person that we had to drag to the training ground. Shikamaru was proving to be almost an equally big of a challenge.

I had to resist the urge to loose an evil chuckle. Poor kid, I honestly couldn't blame Shikamaru for wanting to ditch training, Kakashi's methods of motivating his students was rather extreme compared to the Academy instructors. Or at least I doubted that Academy instructors would have allowed dogs to chase Shikamaru around during running practice, with orders to take a bite out of his ass if they thought he was starting to slack off.

Then there was what Naruto and me did to keep him motivated. Between my willingness to shamelessly tattle on him to his mother combined with Naruto's pranks – the poor bastard had learned to never fall asleep during practice unless he wanted to wake up with a shirt full of spiders - along with my eyes that could spot him wherever he tried to hide, he quickly realized it would simply be less troublesome to go through with the training than avoid it.

He still managed to outsmart us and slip his leash from time to time, he wasn't a genius for nothing, so we had to buy a few Shogi and Go boards for him to play with as bribes. It may not have been the typical kind of training you'd expect from ninjas but mental exercises were still a legitimate form of training. Besides, Naruto needed to exercise her brain a bit more and she was far more receptive to strategy games than books.

By this point I felt rested enough to move around a bit, so I pushed myself up to a sitting position and turned to look at Kakashi, "Remind me again, why the hell do I have to do all of these push-ups with your fat ass sitting on my back?"

"Again, not fat but awesome. Say it with me, 'my Sensei has an awesome ass'. Repeat it in your head until you get it right." Kakashi flipped over another page, his single eye bulging out of his head as he read a particularly raunchy line before he let loose another perverse giggle. "As for why we're doing this, it's because your upper body strength sucks. For someone who's supposed to be the top of your class in taijutsu, you have rather scrawny arms."

"First, I'm not scrawny, I'm lean. There is a very big difference between the two." I made sure to point out. I worked my ass off getting my body in such good shape and I wasn't about to let anyone diss it. "Second, I'm a Gentle Fist user. What the hell would I need bulky arms for? I can kill someone with a touch of my fingers, I don't need or even want the extra punching power."

"Nevertheless, you still need to bulk up a little bit more if you ever want to master the Lightning Release." Kakashi reached out and tapped my right shoulder, the same one that I had dislocated in my fight with him. "That jutsu puts a massive strain on the user's body, both from the lightning coursing through them and from how hard the muscles are forced to work. Even if you master the technique today you won't be able to use it to its complete potential, not without tearing your body apart.

"As you are now, I doubt you could last more than ten seconds if that. Your muscles, your bones and most importantly you tendons, are all too weak to withstand it. If you tried to swing a punch in your current state with the Lightning Release fully activated you're far more likely to end up with a dislocating shoulder than anything."

"And here I thought I was physically strong for my age," I grumbled to myself. It was really frustrating that after all my years of non-stop training I had to suffer through it wasn't enough.

"Now ducky, don't fell too bad." The prick patted me on the head again. I would have felt more comforted by the gesture if I haven't seen him pet his dogs in practically the very same manner just a couple of days earlier. "You're fine physically, or your legs and core muscles are at least. It's your upper body that's lacking. That's the problem with you Hyuugas. You guys can run with the best of them, have bodies so flexible that circus acrobats would turn green with envy but when it comes to lifting weights, you lot are worthless. I know twelve years old girls with more arm strength than anyone in your entire Clan."

"Hey! Comparing us to Naruto isn't exactly fair now." I objected to the slight, ignoring Naruto as she laughed as off. Apparently she had ditched the Go game entirely in favour of listening in on us.

A few seconds later I blanched in horror as a terrifying realization dawned on me. "Wait! Does that mean I have to bulk up like the Raikage to learn the Lightning Release?" Almost retching at the idea. Trust me, Hyuugas are simply not meant to have that much muscle on us, we'd look horrible.

Kakashi chuckled, looking away from his book for the first time. "No, not unless you want to. The Raikage needs all the extra bulk because it suits his style. Unlike you and me who are only looking for speed, the Raikage wants the brute strength that comes with the technique in addition to the speed. He likes using his body like a battering rams to crush his enemies. When I said to bulk up, I was thinking more along the lines of Gai or me." He outright snickered at the palpable relief on my face. "Don't worry Ducky, you don't have to bulk up anywhere near as them unless you want to."

"Thank god for small blessings then." I heaved out a sigh of relief as I dropped back onto the ground. I did not consider myself a vain person by any means, but the idea of turning into one of those muscles bound body-builders that I used to see in the gym all the time was simply unappealing to me.

"By the way Sensei," I spoke up a moment later as I laid down at the grass, face to the sky. "Naruto and me won't be able to make it to training tomorrow."

Naruto shot straight up, stiffening at my words. Her face turned oddly empty as her gaze swerved onto me, those blue eyes of hers filled with so many conflicting emotions that contrasted with the blank expression she wore, before she switched to Kakashi a moment later. She watched him like the hawk, unblinking and unmoving. It was something that I usually only saw her do when she gave something her complete attention, staying perfectly still yet focused, and I knew she was taking everything in as she waited to hear his answer.

"Hmm?" Kakashi looked up from his book to shoot me a questioning look. "That's unusual. I never thought I'd see the day where you'd ask for less training. Something wrong?"

Lifting a hand, I lazily waved his concerns away. "No, nothing bad. Just a birthday party Naruto needs to attend, I'm just tagging along."

"A birthday?" Kakashi's single eye blinked in confusion. I guess whatever it was he was expecting me to say, it wasn't that. He cocked his head to one side like one of his dogs, "Anyone I know?"

"You could say that," I replied, "It's July 10th tomorrow, can you think of anyone who has a birthday on that day?"

Kakashi lowered his book and cupped his chin with one hand. "I don't think so-," Comprehension dawned in his eyes as he remembered. "_Oh_!"

He turned to look at Naruto, who immediately glanced away, refusing to meet his eyes. "I see." He said at last, eyes softening. "Well, I guess that's fine then."

Lifting his book up to his face he turned his attention back to reading, "Alright Duckies, tomorrow's training is cancelled. It's a rare day off, so be sure to enjoy yourself."

Naruto all but slumped in relief at his words, but both Kakashi and I pretended not to notice. For all of the girl's buster and courage, there are some things that Naruto even can't face head on. And this one of them, she had always been overly sensitive whenever it comes to her.

"Thanks." I told Kakashi, meaning it.

He just absently waved me off. "Maa~, Maa~, don't make such a big deal out of it. I get to get a day off and that's always a good thing." Then he added quietly, so that only I could hear him. "Be sure to tell her I said hi."

"Sure thing." I answered, equally quiet.

Shutting down my Byakugan, I closed my eyes and took the chance to enjoy the moment while Kakashi returned to his book.

A kind of comfortable silence fell between us as we both came to a silent understanding. If nothing else, when it came to keeping Naruto safe, we both knew where the other stood.

"Hey! What the hell are you two doing?" I heard Naruto yell, indignation filling her voice. I turned my head to the side and cracked open my eyelids to see what was happening. Naruto's two clones were looking abashed from where they sat on either side of the Go board, rubbing the back of their head as they gave the original sheepish smiles. "You-you-you lost three times! How? I don't even understand how you two could have played so many games when I wasn't looking? Didn't I tell you not to touch anything! I can't believe how stupid you two are to have lost so badly."

Again, I did not bother pointing out to Naruto what it meant for her if she thought her own clones were stupid.

* * *

A bell chimed from somewhere over my head as I pushed open the door.

It always felt like stepping into a different, tiny world whenever I walked into this store. As always the first thing I noticed was the air, it was damp with humidity, thick with so many different blends of scents that it was almost overwhelming and tasted so fresh that I couldn't help but be reminded me of my mother's garden during early spring.

"Welcome to Yamanaka flower shop." A voice called out from behind the counter, where an attendant had her back turned to me as she worked on a bouquet of flowers. "How can I help- oh, it's just you Hikaru."

"Nice to see you too Ino." I answered back blandly, trying to sound offended at the unenthusiastic tone Ino had adopted once she had realized she was talking to me. "As always, I'm overwhelmed by how welcome you make me feel whenever I shop here. It's a wonder that I don't come by more often."

"Come off it Hikaru," Ino waved a dismissive hand from over her shoulder, already turning away to continue her work on the flowers, "I don't have the energy to give you the full welcome treatment. I barely had time to shower after my training with Asuma-sensei before my Dad had me man the store. Do you have any idea how hard it is to act chipper all the time in front of customers when you want to do nothing more than get some beauty sleep."

"You'd be surprised." I replied, thinking back on all the public 'birthday parties' that I had to sit through as a child, where I did nothing but smile and nod politely for hours at the unending stream of guests. "So training is going well I take it. Asuma pushing you guys hard?"

"Not precisely, no." Ino admitted, a touch of frustration coloring her tone. "And that's the problem."

Even as she talked to me the pony-tailed blonde Heiress continued with her work, carefully looking over the bouquet with a critical eye, searching for imperfections. Though I could see nothing wrong with the flower arrangement she must have thought differently because she kept adding and removing flowers, occasionally nudging one in place.

"Why are men such lazy pigs?" Ino groused out loud, adding another violet lilac to the arrangement. "I mean really, why is every guy in my team so lazy. Is it like this for everybody or is it just with me? Am I the only cursed with teammates who would rather bum off cigarettes or eat a pack of chips than work?"

"Asuma and Chouji giving you trouble I take it?"

"You can say that." She snorted, tossing her hair over one shoulder, "I have to spend twenty minutes every morning convincing those two to get off their asses and train. Chouji refuses to work until he eats his second breakfast while Asuma believes it's better to allow him to go at his own pace than rush him. Thank god Sakura is on my team, I have no idea what I would have done if it wasn't for her."

Ino paused for a moment and thought on it. "On second thought I know exactly what I would have done, I'd be pulling my hair out in frustration as I spent half my day trying to get my team to do any real work. Which reminds me," She spared a quick glance over her shoulder, "thank your grandfather for me will you? I don't know what he did exactly, but if it wasn't for him I would have been stuck with Shikamaru instead of Sakura as a teammate and that would have been hell."

"I'll be sure to pass the message." I told her with a dry smile. "Though I imagine Asuma wasn't as pleased as you were with the team placement."

"Oh Asuma was furious," Ino commented flippantly, "He somehow got it into him that Shikamaru, Chouji and me would make a great team just because our fathers were." She snorted. "Yeah, as if. If I had to deal with a team filled with lazy boys alone without Sakura to help me out then I doubt I'd have been able to last a month before I snapped."

She turned to face me, a polite smile on her face. "The three of us were raised together you know, and I love Shikamaru as if he were my own flesh and blood brother." Her smile slowly grew a little bit too wide to be completely normal and her eyes gained a certain glint that made me take an involuntary step back. "But I swear if I had to hear him call me a 'troublesome women' day in and day out for the rest of my ninja career, I would have to kill him. And I mean I would physically strangle him and make him choke on his words. And I honestly don't think I would even regret it."

Then like a switch being switch the deranged look in her eyes disappeared, leaving behind nothing more than an ordinary smiling girl. Turning back to the flowers, Ino tossed a final comment over shoulders. "So I think it turned out better for all this way, don't you?"

"...If you say so." I replied, feeling a bit little scared of Ino for the first time in my life. And here I thought women were supposed to be the kinder gender.

Shaking my discomfort off, I decided to pretend that the last minute didn't happen and get back to the real reason why I was here in the first place. "Anyway Ino, I'm here to pick up some flowers I ordered. Are they ready yet?"

"It should be, just give me a couple of more minutes to finish with this and I'll look for it. Someone made a special orders for a bouquet of lilac flowers for today and I want to get it just right." She told me as she continued to alter the flower arrangement for what must have been the hundredth time. Say what you want about Ino, but when it came to her family's business she was a bit of a perfectionist.

"Take your time then, I'm in no hurry." Smiling, I allowed her to continue on her work, not bothering to mention that she was working on the flowers I had ordered.

"So, how Shikamaru doing anyway?" Ino asked after a few seconds of silence, probably more for something to talk about than anything, "He's not giving you too much trouble is he? I know how much of hassle it can be getting him to do any work."

"Actually, Shikamaru had been doing great. He really had been giving it his all during training."

Ino actually froze a moment later when she finally processed what I said, before turning around to give me a skeptical, "Really?" she asked, an eyebrow raised. "Hikaru, I know Shikamaru well enough to know that nothing short of his mother can get him to do any work."

"That's only because you don't know how to properly motivate him," I pointed out, "If you did, you'd find that Shikamaru can be quite the hard worker."

"Uh-huh," Ino drawled, clearly not believing a word I said. "And how precisely do you go about motivating him?"

"Dogs." I told her.

"Dogs?" She parrot, a second eyebrow joining the first.

"Yes dogs," I confirmed, not hiding the wicked smile that graced my lips. "You'd be surprised how fast Shikamaru can run when you send a pack of ninja-dogs after him with orders to take a bite out of his ass if he happens to slack off and slow down."

Ino's jaw dropped open, "And his mum didn't have anything to say about it."

"Oh, she had plenty of thinks to say." My smile just grew larger as I thought of his mother's response. Really, Yoshino was one of a kind. "Actually I think it was his mother that finally caused Shikamaru to resign himself to training. After the first time he got bitten by Kakashi's dogs he went to his mom to complain, only for Shikamaru to appear for practice the next day carrying an expensive brand of doggy treats. It was a gift from his mum, along with a note asking if she could borrow a couple of the dogs to use on her husband."

Ino's jaw hung open for a few more second before she burst out laughing, bending over and wrapping her arms around her belly from how hard she laughed. "Oh my god! That's hilarious. I wish I could have seen the look on his face." She continued to laugh unabatedly for a good twenty seconds before she calmed down enough to talk again.

She raised her head and turned her green eyes up to me, eyes twinkling with merriment, "You know, maybe I should try that on Chouji. Do you think Kakashi would be willing to send a couple of dogs my way as well."

"I'll be sure to ask the next time I see him." I promised.

"Thanks." She said before turning back to the flowers, still chuckling with good humor.

As I watched the blonde girl work, I found myself immensely relieved by how much this world differed from Kishimoto's version of it. I didn't know if it was because of all the changes I made by being here or if it had always been this way, but Ino had ended up becoming a vastly different person than she was in the series.

For one thing, she isn't a boy obsessed girl. Maybe it was because she didn't have Sasuke here to base her infatuation on but Ino didn't spend most of her days fighting to gain the attention of a boy and had actually put some real effort into becoming a respectable ninja. Though she was still pretty much a girly-girl in many ways and loved to gossip like you wouldn't believe.

That was actually another thing that was different in this world. I don't know if it was something Kishimoto embellished for the sake of comedy, or if it was something about me that scared them off but even though, like Sasuke, I performed head and shoulders above anybody else and was hailed as a genius, I was in no way popular with any of the girls in class. Neither Ino, Sakura, nor anyone else for that matter, had at any point in time had ever had a crush on me, and I cannot begin to express how immensely relieved I was to discover that.

I didn't know why that was the case and frankly I didn't care. I was just happy that I would never have to experience what it felt like to have mobs of fan-girls chasing me around and dogging my every move.

"There," Ino stated a minute later, giving the flowers a once over before nodding to herself in satisfaction, "that should do it. Now, give me a second and I'll be back with your order."

"Actually Ino," I stopped the girl before entered the back room and pointed to the bouquet she had been working on, "That is my order."

Ino looked stunned, her eyes jumping from the flowers I was pointing to and my face. "Umm Hikaru, not to sound rude but are you sure you ordered the right kind of flowers?" She began cautiously, "Those are purple lilacs, and they have a very specific meaning when giving them to someone."

"Yes Ino, I know that they're lilacs and I know exactly what they symbolize." I answered, amused but unsurprised by her reaction. In the language of flowers, purple lilacs are supposed to symbolize first or a new love, which is why their often seen in weddings, even in here the Elemental Nations. Over the years, it has become something of a growing trend in Konoha for a guy to give it to a girl on a first date. "And yes, those are the flowers I wanted to buy."

Ino's eyes went so wide that I thought they might roll out of her eyes while she gaped at me, her mouth opening and closing as she tried to speak but nothing seemed to come out.

Finally, swallowing, she managed to pull herself together enough to raise a trembling finger to point at me, "_Oh_-_My_-_God._" Ino emphasized each word as she spoke, "You've finally asked Naruto out! Haven't you? You're going out on a date!" All but squealing the last word in delight.

"_When?_ H_ow?_ _Where? _Details, I need details. Tell me everything. Did you ask her out or did she? You have to tell me!" Ino had a mile-wide smile on her face as she fired out questions after question so rapidly that I had trouble processing what she was saying, let alone answer her back. "Is that why you're all dressed up, for your date?"

I looked down at myself to take in what she was talking about. Unlike the usual type of clothing that I liked to wear, basically a shorts and shirt combo that's not too different from what Neji used to favor, today I had decided to dress up in style. I was wearing a traditional kimono, mostly made up of a single shade of dark blue that was lined with a some white, that was tailored from material so fine that, even to someone like me, it was clearly expensive.

"Kinda traditional for a first date, don't you think?" Ino comment, coming out from behind the counter to circle around me, looking me up and down with the same critical eye she used on the flowers. "But you Hyuugas love that kind of thing, so I guess it's only to be expected and it is clear you put some effort into it. Plus I have to admit it does look good on you."

Ino worried her bottom lip as she thought it over, before finally nodding to herself. "Good enough, I give it a pass. You have my approval to wear that on your date."

"Thank you, I cannot begin to tell you how much your approval means to me." I told her blandly, though the I felt my lips twitch upwards, giving away the amusement I felt. I shook my head at the excited girl. "But I'm sorry to disappoint you Ino but I didn't ask Naruto out for a date."

Ignoring the bewildered look Ino was giving me I walked around the counter and picked up the flowers she had been working on. And I had to admit that it was really well done, the lilacs were mixed with several tiny blue flowers, whose name I did not know, and were arranged in a way that really helped highlight the purple of the lilac.

Lifting the tiny bouquet up, I took a moment to really examine it from all angles. "And these flowers aren't for her. They're for a different girl, a certain beautiful red-head that I happen to know."

Satisfied, I turned around to complement Ino for a job well done only to find that Ino had turned a pale white. She was standing completely still, as if froze in place, her eyes staring blankly ahead at nothing.

"Ino?" I inquired cautiously, not sure what was had caused the normally talkative girl to become so silent. "Are you alright?"

My words seemed to do the trick because she seemed to start and snap awake, before her head turned to look straight at me. "...Oh god," She began, the empty look on her face quickly replaced with one of dawning horror, "Naruto's going to end up in prison isn't she?"

"What?" This time it was my turn to be taken aback as I tried to understand the leap in logic that lead her to that conclusion. "No! Why would you think she'd end up in jail?"

"Because Naruto is going to murder someone when she finds out. Oh god," Ino palmed her face, "I'm going to end up being friends with a murderer."

I couldn't help it, she looked so serious when she spoke that I ended up broking down in laughter, causing to Ino glare at me in annoyance.

"It's not funny." She snapped. "Naruto would really end up killing someone when she finds out. I've sparred with her you know," Ino winced at the memory and rubbed her belly, "and she has one mean punch even when she's holding back. One good hit is all she needs to take the poor girl's head off."

"Don't worry Ino," I reassured the girl, still chucking lightly as I walked out from behind the counter and approached her, "Naruto is definitely not going to kill someone over this because she already knows. In fact, not only was it her idea but she plans to tag along with me. You see," I stopped once I near the girl and leaned forward towards her ear while simultaneously lowering my voice, as if I was about impart a very important secret, "it turns out that Naruto is really into red-heads or at least she's into this particular red-head. And I can guarantee you that Naruto is going to enjoy her company just as much, if not more, than I will."

After finally imparting the truthful, if slightly misleading, bit of news, I leaned away from Ino, only to find myself having to fight back the urge to cackle as Ino blushed a bright tomato red at the implications.

Oh how I love messing with people's head. Especially when I'm being completely honest with them.

"I...I…_Huh_?" Ino stutter illegibly, actually looking as if she was about to go into shock. A few second of nonsense muttering later, Ino's brain seemed to finally being rebooting itself, "...Icha Icha spoke the truth." She whispered quietly to herself, still clearly out of it.

My eyes bulged at her words, not believing what I just heard her say, before I felt an _oh so wicked_ smile grace my lips. "Oh Ino," I purred, my voice thick with amusement, "I didn't know you were into porn."

Somehow Ino managed to turn even redder as she realized what she had said; clearly she hadn't meant for me to hear that.

Ino was starting at me with wide terrified eyes, looking ready to bolt. It was such a 'deer in the headlights' look that I decided for once to show some mercy and spare the poor girl from any more grief. For now at least, you can be sure I'd be bringing this back up again later, this was far too good to drop entirely.

"Well, I have to be going Ino. Don't want to be late." I walked towards the store's exit and was about to make my way out but not before making one final comment before leaving. "Be sure to enjoy your erotic porn. I heard that the latest version is a really good one."

This time when the bell chimed above me as I opened the door, it was intermixed the sound of my laughter.

* * *

It was the _click-clack_ of wooden sandals that alerted me to her arrival, so when the weight slammed into my back I was already ready for it and managed to stay on my feet, staggering only for a single step before regaining my balance. I didn't even need to think as I hooked my arms beneath the legs that appeared on either side of my waist, supporting her weight while making sure not to crush the small bouquet that I still held in my hand while I did so.

Deceptively thin arms wound their away around my neck, their owner using them to pull herself closer to me so that she can nuzzle the back of my neck.

_"__Hikaru__~,__"_ Turning my head, I found myself staring into a set of sapphire eyes that sparkling in the sunlight, not more a couple of inches away from my own, an infectious grin adorning the face they belonged to, _"__I __found ya."_

_"_Idiot," I deadpanned to the grinning Naruto as she latched onto my back, piggybacking, "I'm the one who found you. You're late, I had to come looking for you."

"Ah, ahahaha," the blonde smiled sheepishly at that, one hand rubbing the back of her head awkwardly, the other still latching onto me. "Sorry, sorry, I kinda lost track of the time."

"It's fine," I assured the girl, looking away as I turned around and resumed walking, this time heading towards our destination. "It's not as if we're in any real hurry, we have all day. Just make sure not get your cloths all wrinkled up, you hear?"

"Got ya," Sensing more than seeing her nod behind me.

It was not long before I felt the blonde shift a bit on my back, making herself more comfortable as she set her face on the top my back, right between my shoulder blades. She nuzzled contently as found the perfect spot to relax, and I knew without looking that she had already shut eyes, almost as she was about to fall asleep.

And maybe she would, it wouldn't have been the first time it would happen.

We walked for a while in a comfortable silence as I navigated through the crowd of milling people, neither of us feeling the need to talk, and we just enjoyed the presence of each other's company.

The crowds didn't thin or disperse as I pushed my way through them, the people either not realizing who was sitting on my back thanks to the way she was all dressed up or simply not caring. While I won't go as far as to say that the ordinary citizens of Konoha had lost their fear of Naruto, or more specifically their fear of what she held in her belly, it wasn't as bad as it had been seven years ago.

There was still a lot of people who would cross to the other side of the street whenever they saw her coming, but there was just as many that didn't. I guess it goes to show that people could get used to anything if you waited long enough, even a demon container.

Still, it didn't make so much of a lick of difference to Naruto or me whether the average citizens of Konoha were scared of her or not. For me it had simply never mattered, I had never been particularly worried about what stranger thought about me, not in this or my last live, while Naruto herself had long since adopted a similar mindset to mine and had stopped caring what they thought of her entirely.

Soon the crowds began to steadily thin out as I made my way farther away from the more populated area of the city and neared the outskirts. I was making good progress and before too long I found myself standing at the base of a gray stone staircase. It was set on the side of a large grassy hill and went all the way up to the peak.

The hill it's was unusual. There were no building on it, no place to live in yet it was clearly well maintained. The stones the stair were crafted from were perfectly flat and in pristine condition, almost as if it had been scrubbed clean recently. There was also several paths ringing the hill, a good two dozen, all them made from the same grey bricks the staircase was made and all of them were only reachable by climbing the staircase.

Knowing that the path we needed to take was near the peak, I shifted Naruto's weight around a bit, making sure I had a proper better grip on her, before I ascended the first step and began the long trek up the hill.

The crowds were none existent here, as it usually was at this time of year, so it was only Naruto and me on the hill. Though the climb was a bit of a long one I knew it wouldn't tire me out. Not only was I in good enough shape but I had long ago gotten used to climbing this particular staircase. We came here almost every year, Naruto and me that is, and even with Naruto's weight added it was still an easy climb.

Naruto had always felt so light when I carried here that I barely noticed she was even there. It was hard to believe that this little wisp of a girl held all that power in her tiny body. I didn't know if that was because I had gotten stronger over the years or if I had I just gotten so used to Naruto's presence in my life but these day I no longer even noticed the extra whenever I had to carry her.

A few minutes later I noticed that I had reached the level I needed to and took a left turn off the staircase and onto the path.

"Naruto," I called out to the as I slowly walked along the empty path. When I didn't hear a response I called out to her again, louder this time. "Naruto, we're almost there." Had she really fall asleep?

"_Hmm_?" A groggy voice drifted from behind me, confirming my suspicion.

"I said we're almost there. Time to get up Naruto."

"_Oh_," came the lazy sounding reply, followed by a long drawn-out yawn, "Alright, I'm up, I'm up."

Naruto shifted around a bit on my back as she roused herself awake, almost causing me to lose my balance for a second, before I felt her place her hands on my shoulders and use them to push herself up, granting her a clear view of the place from over my head.

"Man, this place never changes does it?" She said as she looked around at all the stone monuments that lined either side of the road. After looking around a bit more she glanced down at me, "It looks exactly same as it did last year, doesn't it Hikaru?"

"Of course it does," I snickered at the idea of this place ever changing. "It's not like the people here can redecorate the place even if they wanted to, can they? Now," I halted in my tracks, "get off and let me a good look at you. We're almost there and I need to make sure you look presentable."

"Alright," The hands on my shoulders pushed slightly and I released my hold on Naruto's legs and allowed her to slip to the ground. I heard her land softly behind me, followed by the _click-clack_ of wooden sandals hitting the stone floor as she walked around to stand in-front of me.

"_Ta-dah!_" Naruto exclaimed, holding her arms open so I can better examine her. "Well, how do I look?"

Like me, Naruto wasn't dressed up in her usually fair. In place of the orange and black suit that she loved to wear, Naruto was instead wearing a beautiful yellow kimono, one that had orange flower petals decorating its surface. It was the very same kimono that I had seen my mother force on her a couple of weeks ago. Though her hair was styled differently than it had been back then. Instead of having it freely falling down her back as she usually did, or the French braids she wore that day, today her golden locks was done up in an elaborate design, fashioned and held in place over her head with a comb that was decorated with pink flowers.

"Well," She repeated, a little shyly this time, fidgeting slightly as I looked her over. As it was fashionable these days, the sleeves of her kimono was a little on the long side so it half covered her hands, and she hand to fold her fingers over the edge of the sleeves to hold it in place. "How do I look?"

"Perfect," I told her truthful, her smile turning back to her usual confident one at my praise, "Looks like my mother did a good job."

"Of course she did," Naruto smirked, nodded proudly, "She had a good model to work with."

Seeing that we were both ready, I began making my way down the stone path and covering the last stretch of distance until our destination. Glancing to my right where Naruto was following alongside me, I asked, "My mum didn't give you any trouble did she?"

Instead of walking like a normal person would, Naruto was practically skipping. She hopped in place once, she spun around so that she was now walking backwards alongside me, the _click-clack_ of the traditional wooden sandals she wore filling the air.

"Nah," She shook her head, before pausing. After thinking over a bit, she gained a sheepish smile and rubbed the back of her head. "Well, not too much anyway. I kinda had a bit of trouble leaving. Mio-san didn't seem to want to let go of me once she finished helping me dress up." Naruto gave me an embarrassed sounding chuckle when I deadpanned at her, still rubbing the back of her head. "I had trouble convincing her to release me from her hug but when I reminded her you were waiting she let me off easy. It was kinda why I was a little late."

"Of course it was," rolling my eyes at the thought of my mother, "I should have figured as much."

What Naruto didn't need to say was that by 'letting her off easy', it meant that my mother had restricted herself to only a good five minutes of cuddling with Naruto instead of her usual twenty.

Really, even in alternate universe mothers were the same everywhere. They go through so much trouble making sure your ready and all dress up in time for your big day only to end up making you late because they refused to let you leave the house when it was time.

By this point I noticed that were were almost at out destination and slowed my pace down, stopping to a halt once we reached there. "Well," I began, glancing to my blonde companion to make sure she was alright, "we're here."

"Yeah," a tense smile fluttered on her lips, "we are."

"Here," I handed her the flowers, placing it directly into her hands. It was Naruto who asked me to buy these, getting that idea after asking my mother for suggestions. "Take it."

Naruto bit her lips, suddenly nervous, looking down at the lavender colored flowers. "Do you think..." she began suddenly before stopping, her blue eyes usual so confident now wavered with uncertainly as they looked into my own, seeking reassurance. "Do you think she'll like them?"

"I think she'll love it." I told her, pushing a loose strand of hair behind ear, "And don't worry, you look beautiful so just go and talk to her."

Though she gained a little dusting of red along her cheeks at my words, it still didn't do anything to relieve her from her nerves. "Alright." Naruto nodded and took a deep breath to gather her courage before she turned away from me and walked ahead., "Here I go, wish me luck."

"Good luck," I called out after her.

I watched from behind her as she stepped forward, walking unsteadily towards the grave, closing the distance in three short steps. Reaching the tombstone, Naruto knelt down and held the flowers on her lap. For a time, she did nothing but stare down at flowers, her fingers dancing nervously on her lap, uncertain on what to do or say.

At last she seemed to gather her courage and, after taking one final deep breath, she lifted her eye and looked straight at the grave.

"Hi," She began, a watery smile on her lips. It looked so fragile, so weak that it felt like it could be washed away with the rain, so very different from her beaming smiles that I have gotten used to seeing on her over the years.

Lifting the lavender colored flower Naruto held it forward and placed it before the tombstone. "These are for you."

Lilacs were the symbol of new love, that was true. But there was another meaning to that flower, one that was less well known and popular than the first.

A large gravestone stood before Naruto, and on its flat surface was engraved a single name.

_Uzumaki Kushina_

"_H__appy Birthday mum."_

Purple Lilacs can also symbolize the love between a mother and child.

* * *

_***Chapter End***_

**Author's Notes:**

Fun fact: Lilac is the symbol for new love, which is why they are often popular in wedding. But they also symbolize the love between a mother and child, which is a far less well known fact. To help me develop Mio's character I had to do some research into flowers in general (she is a flower enthusiast) and stumbled onto this information. When I did, I knew I had to add it in because it would go perfectly along with the chapter.

This chapter was actually only half of the outline I had I planned for it to be, but I decided to end it here because it was such a perfect place to stop and I really want to hear your reactions to it. As my writing is going really well (got this chapter done in less than 5 days) the second half of the chapter should be up before too long.

Oh, for of those you who don't know I have a forum (you can find the link on my profile page) and I'm going to add a place to discuss this story so feel free to drop in if you have any question or want to talk.

I also decided to set up a poll for this story on my profile page. I wanted to find out who were your favourite characters are, not their canon counterpart of course by their re-imagined version here in this story. So be sure to vote and let me know what you think.

Now for as the chapter itself, I spent a lot more time on the training scene than I would have liked but it needed to be done to set the groundwork for the rest of the story, and I tried to make it as entertaining and engaging as possible so I hope managed to pull it off. Oh, and I love writing Kakashi and Hikaru together, they really do make an interesting student-teacher pair. I never planned it to happen but as I wrote about them I found that they really did get along well.

Ino makes a brief appearance as well, not much of one I admit but we're finally starting to see more and more of the cast I have planned for the tale. And we caught a glimpse of the new team 7 dynamics along with the Naruto/Hikaru relationship. As for the end, well I always thought it was a bit of a dick move in the series that no one told Naruto about his mother. Always wonder why the hell didn't they tell him her name, so he could at least visit her grave or something. Well not here, and now we get to explore her reaction to that knowledge.

All in all, a slow paced slice-of-life chapter but hopefully you enjoyed it. Don't worry though, the next chapter will get the plot rolling again and is going to be full of twists so look forward to it.

That's all for now, please leave a review on your way out and tell me what you think. I really appreciate hearing all comments, from the simple 'good job' to the large thousand word reviews, they really help encourage me.

And again, thanks for reading.


	8. Side story 1 - No matter what

**Author's note:**

**It is funny how you can make up an entire world when your writing, even when you don't ever intend on doing so. When I first started thinking of the outline to 'A World Full Of Monsters', I mainly concentrated on Hikaru. I had his entire life plotted out, from the time before his reincarnation all the way to the story's ending. What I hadn't intended was to do the same for the other characters, but that's exactly what happened.**

**As I kept on writing I found myself working more and more on the rest of the characters and they came to life on me, and I started exploring their history, their hopes and dreams, even their fears, and by doing so I found myself creating a world full of characters, all with their own little stories.**

**I found myself writing outlines of short stories about Kakashi, and how we watched over Naruto and as a child. Why he couldn't get close to her, how he watched a little pale-eyed Hyuuga barrage into her life and what he thinks about their relationship. I wrote about Shikamaru and his view about the two and how he feels about being in the team (something I plan to show after this arc but before the chunin exams). I even have an outline about Naruto, how she sees this story from her point of view. And many other characters. But I was worried about typing these little short stories because they have a far more solemn and reflective tone than the other chapters I have written which are filled with comedy and adventure, so I wasn't sure if I would ever publish them.**

**But one night I got hit by inspiration. I jumped out of my bed, powered up my laptop and kept typing until I could not type anymore. Then I walked back to my bed and crashed. The next morning I woke up and read over what I had written. And I knew I had to post it. Even if it was different than anything I've done before, I knew I would never forgive myself as a writer if I just left this to gather dust in my hard-drive.**

**That was how the side story chapters were made, and if this one is well received I plan to post more, inter-spaced between my usual kind of chapters for this story. This chapter is rather different to anything I've written so far, and I'm a little nervous on how well it's received so I'd really appreciate it of you told me what you thought of it.**

**And for those of you wanting plot advancement again, along with Hikaru's darker more ruthless side, don't worry, it's coming. I'm working on the next chapter as we speak.**

**Anyway, here it is, the first of our side story chapter. I hope you enjoy it.**

**_Recommended_****_ OST - Play: Tooi Hi No Kizuato_**

* * *

**Side story 1:**

**No matter what**

**(Hikaru X Naruto)**

* * *

_Does my mummy hate me?_

Once, a very long time ago, Naruto asked me that question.

She was clutching a yarn doll in her hands, a raggedy old thing that she had gotten from who knows when. It was her favourite back in those days, always taking it to bed with her whenever she slept, which explained why she had it with her then. She was wearing her pajamas, a large t-shirt that hung off one shoulder and so long that it almost reached her toes, her hair was a tangled bird's nest of a mess. It wasn't as long then, barely reaching past the tip of her chin.

I could tell she had been crying again.

You wouldn't think it seeing how outgoing she acted, but back then Naruto was a real cry baby. She would cry almost every day. Just cry, cry, cry, a never ending waterworks I tell you. Never when someone is watching though, never then. It was always when she was alone, as if she wasn't supposed to let others see her when she cried.

But my eyes could look beyond the walls that hide her, beyond even the long miles that divided us, there was no place she could hide to cry that I could not find. I knew each and every single time she wept and yet, there was nothing I could do. Every time I would enter the room, barging in to see what's wrong, she would immediately cheer up, paste on a wide beaming smile and pretend nothing had happened. All sunshine and rainbows, as if she hadn't been brawling her out a second earlier.

_If I'm only supposed to laugh when I'm happy, then…then…_

…_Then I'll do nothing but cry all the time._

I asked, back when we first fought at the Academy, I asked her if she would never let other people see her cry then how was she supposed to let them know she was in pain. She told me this.

_Because no one will care, there is no one there to even notice._

I hadn't taken it seriously, not really, but maybe I should have.

I really hated seeing her cry, but I hated seeing her pretend she hadn't been crying even more.

Kids aren't supposed to act so grown up. I already told you, didn't I Naruto? Acting so wise and brave, you should leave hard stuff like that to old men like me and just cry to your heart's content.

She used to have nightmares too. Not a lot, but enough for me to take notice. I still remember the first time I found about them. It was during one of my sleepovers, I had almost fallen asleep in the guest bedroom when a hesitant knock on the door had woken me.

She was standing there, her shivering body half way into the room while the other half was hidden behind the barely open door. She had stuck her head into the room but refused to enter, as if it took up all of her courage to get that far and she couldn't bring herself to enter the rest of the way in. She was peering up at me, in the way only small children could, her soulful blue eyes wide and afraid.

_Can I sleep with you tonight?_

I just raised my blanket up and patted the spot beside me.

After that night, she never bothered asking anymore, as if she knew she would always be welcome. Sneaking quietly into my room, tip-toeing, careful not to wake me, before silently slipping beneath the blanket and into my bed.

Yet, she would still not touch me. Not then.

Back then our friendship was still new, uncertain and untested. She wasn't sure what she was and wasn't allowed to do, didn't even know if she could hold my hand without asking permission first. It was as if she didn't know the limits and bounds of our relationship, what it really meant for us to be friends.

I remember waking up at times to find her lying down next to me, hand outstretched towards me as if she wanted to shake me awake or to simply just hold me, to feel the warmth and touch of another human being in the night.

But she was always too scared to.

Her hand would hover, just a hairbreadth away out of reach, almost but never actually touching. She would just wait, hand hovering in the air, too scared to get any closer but unwilling to pull back away. So she just held her hand there, waiting for something to happen, for someone to cover the rest of the distance and reach back to her.

How long has she been waiting like that? Not just with me but with everyone, waiting and hoping that someone will come for her?

I remember how she would cry when I ignored the hand entirely and reached for her instead, pulling her into a hug. How she would sob into my chest, clutching my shirt in her tiny fists, as I held her close and rocked her back to sleep, wishing all the nightmares away as I did so.

That was the only time Naruto allowed me to see her cry.

_Are you real?_

She would ask me that each and every time, clutching onto me so tightly as if I was all that stopped her from drowning, sobbing into my chest while I continued to rock her to sleep.

_Please don't go away._

_Stay. Please?_

She had saved the village by becoming the container of a Demon, became their hero, and this was her reward. A loneliness so profound that I could not even begin to comprehend. One that all of the money they had given her, all of the praise they heaped upon her shoulders, couldn't even ease.

Ever since, I made sure that Naruto never slept alone. I never wanted her to wake up scared and alone in a dark empty apartment ever again. From then on, whenever I could, I would sleep at her place in her high-class apartment along with her and when I couldn't, when I was needed back at the compound, I would take her along with me. So over the years I had gotten used to waking up only to find her sleeping by my side in my bed, first as place of refuge from the night and the terrors they held, then later on, when her nightmares had diminished in number before disappearing entirely, as a place she found comfort in.

That night was different though.

She hadn't tried to sneak into my room, though I figured she might. She had been acting off all day, more quiet and subdued, it was subtle so the others hadn't noticed but I did. So that night I had made sure not fall asleep and stayed up listening, waiting for her arrival. After an hour, when I heard her door creak open and the sound of tiny feet on the hallway floor, I thought for sure she would come.

She didn't.

This time, no matter how long I waited for her to arrive, she wouldn't come to me room. So instead, I forced myself to go to her. Slipping out from the warmth of my covers, the wooden floor cold beneath my bare feet, I snuck out of my room and headed towards the living room.

She had been waiting for me, as if she knew I would come.

That night, she told me a secret.

She was sitting on the windowsill, the one in the living room, looking almost ephemeral as she was bathed in the moonlight, knees folded up to her chest. She would not look up to me when she spoke, instead her blood-shot eyes were riveted on the raggedy little yarn doll she held. One that had a head full of crimson colored hair.

_I killed my mummy._

That was the first time Naruto ever mentioned her mother to me.

I had completely forgotten about Uzumaki Kushina then, and what it meant for Naruto to know her mother's name. It would be her birthday tomorrow and, like every year, she wanted to see her. To visit and say hello, to finally meet her. But she was too scared to.

_I think she hates me._

She had overheard the adults talk about that day, about the time the Kyuubi attacked. They didn't know she was there of course, Naruto had always been good at hiding, even all the way back then, so they conversed freely, never once suspecting the tiny little ears that had been listening.

She stayed silent and listened carefully as they talked about the incident, about the reason why the Kyuubi broke free from it's prison, about how the seal that held it at bay had already been weakened due to the previous host's pregnancy, had weakened even further when she went into labour.

That was how Naruto had learned that her mother had died giving birth to her.

She could not understand everything, not entirely, not as young as she had been. But she had understood enough.

Uzumaki Kushina died because she chose to have her.

Because Uzumaki Naruto had been born, Uzumaki Kushina had died.

So without looking at me, without looking at anything but the doll she clutched in her tiny little hands, she asked me, with a voice so low that I had to strain to hear it even in the silence of the room, if I thought her mother hated her.

'Never', I answered, and I knew it was the truth.

She looked at me then, her eyes free from tears, having already long dried out. She asked me in a voice raw from too much crying, how I was so sure.

I told her that it was only natural for a parent to love their children.

'No matter what?' She asked.

'No matter what,' I confirmed, nodding.

'Even if they are the reason why they died?' she asked, desperate for an answer. 'Even if their children were the ones who killed them?'

It was funny that, out of all people, it had been me she had asked, perhaps the one person in the world that can truthfully answer that question.

I tried hard not to think about that night, pretending it never happened. I did not want to think about it, to dwell on those events. But for her, if it was for her sake, for her happiness, I would do it.

I thought back to my own two kids, my twin boys. I thought of that night they had come to kill me, though only one had succeeded in the end.

I still remember it so vividly. The pain, the regret and, most of all, the overwhelming feeling of confusion. I remember thinking it was odd, feeling so cold and hot at the same time. Of how my body felt like it was turning to ice as I laid there on the cold floor in a pool of my own blood, and yet how my chest felt so very hot, the wound I bled from searing like a branding iron.

And most of all, I remember a being consumed by a single soul-searing question.

_Why?_

That single word was what filled my final thoughts as I died.

I tried speaking, tried asking as I laid there bleeding on the ground. Through all the pain, through the whistling wheezing sound that followed every exhale, I tried forcing my mouth to move and ask the question; why? But all that spilled past my lips was blood, not words.

I still tried, even as blood soaked my chin and chest, as the world dimmed about me, I kept asking. _Why? Why? Why?_

And somehow, I think he heard me.

He had been standing over me as I died, watching. I tried to see his face but couldn't, it was too dark, or maybe it was just my vision that was dimming. I couldn't tell what he was feeling, his expression hidden in the shadows. Was he angry, was he smiling, sneering, laughing, crying? I did not know.

In the end, I never did get to hear his answer.

Maybe he had given me one, but if so then I was already dead when it happened.

Still, if you asked me, after all that, after all the pain and betrayal, did I still love my children? Then I could only give you one answer.

I looked back at the girl, at Naruto, as she watched me so earnestly, waiting for my reply.

I did not understand why she thought I would know, why she believed I could answer that question. I did not even understand why she believed I would tell her the truth, instead of just empty platitudes. But for some reason, Naruto had always believed in me, trusted me with every drop of her soul, even when it came to things I should have no right knowing.

So when she asked me if a parent would still love their children even if they ended up killing them, she trusted that whatever answer I would give her, it would not be a lie.

And she had been right – I told her the truth.

"Yes." There was no hesitation in my voice, no uncertainty anywhere to be found. "Even if they ended up killed by them, a parent, a mother, a father, would always love their children," I told her with an honest smile. "No matter what."

It was only natural for a parent to love their child after all.

* * *

**_*Chapter End*_**


	9. Chapter 9: What Lies Hidden Beneath (2)

**Author's notes:**

_And finally the new chapter it out. Sorry for taking to long to get this finished guys but I had gotten the first 2,000 words or so done easily, my writing was flowing as fast as ever before **bam** I got hit with a block and my writing stop for no reason. And no matter what I tried I couldn't get the flow back again._

_I'll be honest this chapter fought me every step of the way, I had to force the words out of me, but I persevered and got finally got the chapter out. Hopefully, it will be up to standards despite the trouble I was having with it, and I really hope you end up enjoying it. Oh, and I'm still going over corrections so I'm sorry if there are more spelling errors than usual, I'll get them fixed up as soon as I could._

_Well, without further ado, let the chapter begin._

***Chapter Start***

* * *

**What Lies Hidden Beneath The Leaves**

**(Second half)**

* * *

It was almost funny how the most world-changing events can happen on the most ordinary of days. Though admittedly it was stupid to believe that the weather would be affected by my own personal problems, a small childish part of me still expected, I don't know, a thunderstorm or something to blow in, so that this story would begin with the cliché of 'it was a dark and stormy night'.

But no, that didn't happen. It was morning for one thing and the weather didn't even have the decency to be cloudy. The sun was shining, the birds were singing and there wasn't so much a single cloud in the clear blue sky. It was as perfect a start to the day as you have hoped for at this time of year. Which was why when Hanabi had walked up to me, I was blissfully unaware of the bombshell she was about to drop on my lap.

"Onii-sama." Feeling an insistence tugging on one of my sleeves, I looked down to find my little sister staring up at me with wide puppy-eyes. Resisting the urge to squeal and glomp her on sheer principle, I waited for her to finish speaking.

"Onii-sama," she repeated, tilting her head to one side, "is it true that you're going to become Naruto-nee's _Waifu_?"

I swear I could hear the sound of glassing shattering when she said that.

Unaware of that she had inadvertently shattered my world, Hanabi brought a finger up to her chin and gained a thoughtful look as she asked, "Does this mean you're going to wear a dress for your wedding?" Then she burst into an excited smile, "If so, then can I help you pick it out?"

It was on that bright sunny day, surrounded by the singing of birds that I began plotting my second murder. I didn't know how, I didn't even know when, but one day I will get revenge on Kakashi.

And when I do, my vengeance will be legendary.

* * *

"-And then Shikamaru was like," Naruto scrunched up her face, her voice coming out as a tired drawl as she tried to imitate Shikamaru, "_this is bullshit."_

The impersonation was so spot-on that I couldn't hold back a snicker from where I stood off to one side. It seemed Naruto had the same problem because after a few seconds of holding that expression she couldn't keep it up and lost it, collapsing into a heap and wrapping her arms around her stomach as she howled with laughter.

After she few seconds she managed to pull herself together and pushed herself back up into a sitting position, Naruto turned back to the gravestone, humor thick in her voice. "You should have to see it Mom, his face was covered in so much soot that he looked like a raccoon. It was hilarious." She shook her head as she snickered again at the memory. "But I don't know what he had to complain about. We got the bell in the end didn't we? And Hikaru only needed to blow up a single forest to do it."

"I blew up a forest?" I parroted, blinking dumbly at the girl, caught off guard by what she had just said. But soon I found myself straightening up with indignation as the meaning of the words began to sink in.

"_**I **_blew up a forest? I? Oh, no-no-no, _no. _You don't get to pin that one on me, that was all _you_." I pointed at blonde as I stalked up to her. She was still kneeling beside her mother's grave. "There is no me involved in that mess at all. _Y__ou_ were the one who planted a thousand and one tags before triggering it and blowing the entire forest sky high. _With us still in it!_" Stressing the last line.

Seriously, that was perhaps the single most terrifying experience I have ever been through...except for the time Kakashi hunted me down after I stole his Icha Icha of course, that still earned top place. I had never been through one before so I never realised how terrifying a forest fire could be, especially when you don't see it coming. One minute we were fine, surrounded by miles of healthy green trees and in embrace of good old mother nature, then I caught sight of Naruto forming the '_snake_' hand-seal and the next thing I know there was a big boom and were surrounded by a sea of fire. It was traumatizing.

Poor Shikamaru still flinches whenever someone strikes a match.

"Hey, that wasn't my fault." Naruto crossed her arms and gave me a stubborn look. "Kakashi was about to catch Shikamaru, what else was I supposed to do? And besides, it _too_ was your fault. You were the one who told me to send my clones to the compound to get more tags."

"But that's only because nothing else would work on Kakashi." I countered as I approached Naruto and knelt down next to her before the grave. "We tried everything we could think of to try and stop him. Traps, ninjutsu, everything, it didn't even seem to slow him down. He just kept shrugging off everything we threw at him as if it were nothing. What choice did I have? We needed to get more fire-power or else we'd have failed the test."

"...So what you're trying to say is," Naruto finally spoke up after pondering over my words, "...it's really all Kakashi's fault."

I thought on it for a moment before nodding, "Yeah, pretty much."

Wordlessly, we both nodded to each other before turning to face the grave then, speaking as one, we said, "Kakashi blew up a forest."

That was team 7's official motto, '_If something goes wrong, blame it on Kakashi __'_. And I'm being totally serious here, it really was our motto. It had been ever since our third mission went _fubar_ on us.

Funny thing was that our motto was born out of necessity rather than any ill-will towards our grey-haired Sensei. The amount of trouble our team kept attracting was unbelievable, and I mean I was literally having trouble believing how much trouble we kept getting into. And I knew for a fact that Hokage was as well if the disbelieving looks he gave us whenever we walked into his office was any indication. Our Genin Exam and the Tora mission aside, there were two other occasions where we had to be called into the Hokage office to be reprimanded.

At this point I'm sure that half the Konoha's population was convinced that our team is jinxed, and that the only reason why the Hokage hasn't proposed splitting our team up is because he's afraid that whatever unlucky curse that haunts our team might contaminate the rest of the Shinobi population and spread if he does.

I mean I always knew that Naruto and me had a certain knack into getting all sorts of trouble, and I had no doubt Kakashi was just the same as us if not worse, but throw us all in a team together and it was like our ability to attract trouble was amplified. I swear we must have had some kind of synergy going on because our ability to attract mayhem grew to insane levels and as a result our team was already gaining a reputation as a trouble magnet.

After a while of suffering through catastrophe after catastrophe, we realised that it would be easier to just heap all the blame on Kakashi instead of trying to think of excuses each and every time we got into trouble. And besides, odds are, it was probably his fault anyway.

And that was how the new Team 7 motto was born.

Naturally Kakashi tried to reject it outright, he wanted to go with the motto of _'Those who break the rules are trash, but those who abandon their comrades are even worse than trash'_ instead. And while I had to admit that was a freaking awesome line, we all agreed that the 'blame Kakashi' was a more practical slogan so it stuck. And since choosing a team motto was a group decision instead of just the instructor, Kakashi couldn't do a single thing about it.

I swear that our Sensei sulked all day afterwards.

The sun had begun it's decent long ago and had already reached the horizon and bathed the graveyard in the colour of twilight. The smooth surface of the gravestones burned, set alight in crimson on orange as they reflected the light of the evening.

It was peaceful here, completely empty save for the two of us, the silence that filled the hill only disturbed by Naruto voice as she recounted tale after tale to her mother. It was how we always spent this day, an annual tradition that we started together since we were six. Every year we came here, just Naruto and me, and Naruto would spend all day telling her mum about all the adventures and mischief she had managed to get up during the year while I would occasionally chime in whenever Naruto left anything out.

And seeing that Naruto can get into a _lot_ of trouble over the course of a year, it didn't surprise that we had to stay well after sunset to finish until she finished.

"...Wait," I cut in, interrupting Naruto as she was in the middle of recounting another tale. "What did you just say?"

"Huh?" Naruto had been caught off guard by interruption and turned to shoot me a perplexed look.

"Just now, that story you were telling to your mom." I explained, my voice sounding unnaturally calm even to my ears "What did you just say?"

"Uhm..." Naruto must have heard something off in my tone because she was giving me a worried look and edged away. But, after another moment of hesitation, she complied, "I said that Mio-san thought it was so cute that you wanted to become my house-wife."

"_It was you!_" I hissed out as I pointed at the girl, indignation and surprise filling my voice. "I thought it was Kakashi who was spreading those rumours but_ it-was-you!"_

"Eh?" Naruto blinked in bewilderment, caught completely off guard at the accusation. She stared at the finger I thrust at her face, going a little cross-eyed, before looking back up to me, "What was me? What rumours."

"_Waifu! Wai-fu!" _I hissed the word out like was poison. I hadn't even know that term existed in this world until I saw Kakashi holding a copy of 'Icha Icha – How I met my _Waifu__'__. _Which reminds me, I'm going to have to do something really nasty to Jiraiya for his part in this, but for now I had another target for my rage. I stalked up to Naruto, how honestly looked baffled but I knew better, "_It was you! Don't try to deny it._ You're the reason why everyone keeps thinking I want to be your house-wife!"

"Ah!" Naruto gave me a sheepish smile and rubbed the back of her head, "Wasn't I suppose to not mention that?"

"No!" I snapped, resisting the urge to throttle the girl, "You weren't."

"_He-he_, sorry," She pokes her tongue out, "My bad, I didn't know."

Naruto tried to give me an apologetic expression, but I wasn't buying it. The way the edge of her lips kept twitching told me that she was fighting to keep a smile off her face.

"It's not like I went out of my way to tell people," She quickly began to explain, raising her hands up in surrender as caught the stormy look on my face, "but I was telling Mio-san about how we met Kakashi-Sensei for the first time and she wanted me to tell her everything, so I couldn't leave that part out now could I? Besides," by this point Naruto dropped any pretence of being sorry and a wicked grin bloomed on her lips. She reached out to pat my head condescendingly, "There is nothing to be embarrassed about Hikaru-_cha__n, _I'm sure you'd make a wonderful _Waifu _one day._"_

Apparently Naruto couldn't hold it in any longer before she broke into another fit of laughter and fell down to her side, kicking her legs in the air. The glare I sent her did nothing to diminish her humor as she kept on laughing for a good solid minute.

"It's not funny," I told her sullenly when her laughter began to abate, "do you have any idea what you've done? My entire Clan thinks I want to become your house-wife, not_ husband _but_ wife_. I'm not sure if they actually believed that or were just says it for laughs but they were all gossiping about it. Hanabi even told me I'd make a wonderful bride someday. Who the hell knows what my father thinks of this once he finds-" I stopped talking as I remembered a certain incident and felt my face turn pale. "Oh god."

"What?" Naruto asked, curious at what had caused the look of horrified mortification appeared on my face.

"My Dad, he must have heard the rumours." I answered while palming my face, "No wonder he was giving me all of those odds looks during dinner, he thinks that the rumours might be true." I lifted my hand off my face to glare at Naruto as she broke out laughing again, "Stop that." I snapped sullenly, "It's not funny."

"No," Naruto managed to reel in her laughter before she sat herself up, propping her hands behind her. Grinning mischievously, she pointed straight at me, "That is _very_ funny." She snickered again, "And what makes it even better Mio-san had no trouble believing it."

"I know," I thought back to how my mother had been behaving recently, "I thought it was weird when she handed me an apron out of the blue last week. _O__h __g__od_, my mom is actually supporting the idea, she's probably ecstatic with the idea of me becoming your wife. It was probably her fault that the rumours spread so fast."

"Now, now Hikaru-_chan_," Naruto gave me teasing grin, "you can't blame this all on Mio-san. It's partly your fault for giving her the impression that you want to be a happy house-wife."

"My fault?" I shot Naruto a half questioning, half offended look "How exactly was this my fault. When did I ever do anything that would give her that impression?"

All the humor drain from her face as Naruto shot me a deadpan look, "Hikaru, just this morning you were scrubbing the floor of my apartment wearing the very same apron your mum gave you."

_ "There was a __**STAIN**__!"_ I yelled out in outrage, "What was I supposed to do? Leave it?" All but snorting at the thought. Preposterous, as if I would allow such thing. You can't let dirt get a foothold in your house, give it an inch and the next thing you know your entire house will turn into a pigsty.

"...and you wonder why people have no trouble believing the rumours." Naruto stated while giving me a pitying look.

Seeing the expression, I decided enough was enough. She wanted to rat out my embarrassing secrets to my mom, well then two can play at that game.

"Kushina-san," ignoring Naruto completely, I turned to face the gravestone and began speaking directly to it, my tone pleasant and conversational, "did you know I once thought Naruto was a boy? It's true, back when we first met I honestly believed she was a boy instead of a girl. She wore her hair short back then and she had such a boyish name that I was convinced that she had to have been a boy. In fact, I had thought Naruto was a boy for the entire first day we met and only found out that she was a girl when I-"

Swift as lightning, a hand clamped over my mouth and muffled the rest of my words. To my right, the owner of the hand was glaring at me, her blue eyes narrowed in warning. But whatever threat Naruto held in her eyes was diminished considerably by the way her cheeks flushed red with embarrassment.

"We agreed never to speak of that day." Naruto hissed, her entire face turned crimson at the memory of the event.

Gently pulling her hand free from my mouth, I turned and gave Naruto a smile, one that was every bit as wicked as the one she had been giving me earlier.

"But _Goshujin-sama_," I purred, deliberately using the traditional word for husband, one that only an overly submissive wife would use as it could also translate to 'master', "You surely must know how us lowly house-wives loves to gossip. Why, we couldn't keep a secret if our lives depend on it. Besides," I nodded to the grave, "this is your mum, my future mother-in-law, and I'm sure she would love to know about the first time you took a bath with a boy-"

"_Nooooooooo-" _The rest of my words were literally knocked out of me as a blonde missile crashed into my side and pushing me to the ground. I barely had the chance to gather my wits together when I felt a weight straddle my waist and before I knew it, I found myself pinned as two powerful hands latched to my shoulders and held me to the ground.

"Shut it, Hikaru." Naruto ordered from above me, face burning a such a shade of crimson red that would have put any Uzumaki's hair to shame.

"Now, now, _Goshujin-sama_." Still playing the role of a submissive house-wife, I looked away and pretended to be embarrassed, "Are you sure you should be doing this? Isn't this a little much?"

Naruto looked bewilderingly down at me, clearly not understanding what I was trying to imply, so to help her along I nodded to where she was straddling me. "I know you're excited but _Goshujin-sama,_ it is rather inappropriate to mount your wife right in public, in front of your own mother no less?"

Still confused Naruto looked down to see what I was talking about and, somehow, managed to turn even redder at what she saw. She had me pinned by the shoulder while she sat on top of me, straddling my waist and her face right over mine while I laid trapped beneath her on my back. Had anyone been watching, and were our gender's reversed, it would have looked like she had pushed me to the ground and was about to have her way with me.

With her face only a few inches away from me, I had a first-row seat to witness her reaction. And let me tell you, it was a thing of beauty. What I wouldn't give to have a camera because watching the rest of face turn into a tomato red was a Kodak-worthy moment as I had ever seen.

"But if _Goshujin-sama _demands it," still playing my role I raise a hand to my cheek and looked to the side, feigning embarrassment, "then as your wife I have no choice to but to help sate your lust."

"_Hikaru_!" I swear, the sound of her mortified embarrassment was like music to my ears.

* * *

I felt Naruto shift behind me as she face her mother's grave, her arms moving in excitement as she resumed telling her the story of our now infamous first D-rank mission.

Around us the cemetery was dark, the sun having set long ago. Above us, the stars glimmered like an ocean of jewels in the night sky, with little light pollution to compete against they shone more brightly than I had ever seen back on my old world. And between the stars was the moon, a lone island in the middle of the ocean, providing us all the light we needed to see with.

I leaned a little further back into Naruto and stared up at the sky, taking the sight in. We were sitting on the ground with our backs to one another, propping ourselves up by leaning on each others back. Naruto was naturally facing her mother's grave while I got a view of Konoha instead.

It was a rather beautiful sight from up here. The hill towered over everything so there was nothing to block my view and I could see the entire village laid out before me like a painting, thousands of lights blazing from windows piercing the darkness, mirroring the stars that hung above them.

We've been out here for hours, Naruto speaking to her mother, telling her about her year while I just sat back against her, quietly listening to her speak.

Like every year, Naruto would start out slow, hesitant and uncertain. For the first few minutes her conversation came in fits and starts or were spoken in near silent murmurers more often than not, her usual bravado nowhere to bee seen. She constantly kept stopping in mid-speech, looking unsure what to say, only to visibly gather up her courage and start up again.

And like every year, I did nothing but watch as she did this, sitting quietly by her side in silent support, knowing this was something she had to do on her own. But as the minutes then hours passed by, she steadily began to get over her nerves and started to get really into it, until she ended up as she was now, chattering non-stop while gesturing all over the place as she tried to emphasize certain points during a story.

She told her everything that had happened throughout the year. From her pranks, to the time she spent in the Hyuuga compound, the Genin Exam, her new teammates and our latest missions. She talked about the everyday little misadventure she's been through to the major events of her life. I stayed silent through most of this, only occasionally interjecting to throw in a comment or two when Naruto had forgotten to mention certain bits of a story or tried to leave out the more embarrassing moments.

She talked about Shikamaru, who she referred as 'the laziest Genin Konoha had ever seen since Kakashi was promoted to Chuunin'. Though for all that she complained about our resident Nara, she ended her assessment of his character by saying, "He might be the laziest bum around but, well, he ain't so bad when you get to know him."

Kakashi had never shied away from the topic of the Kyuubi and even encouraged us to do the same. So instead of allowing Naruto's status of Jinchuuriki to hang over our heads like a guillotine, one that we all pretended wasn't there, he made sure bring the topic up as often as he could. It actually helped dispel any awkwardness we may have felt otherwise about talking about it and it reached the point you'd often find our team discussing the Kyuubi or the Tailed-beasts in general.

Maybe it was because of the environment Kakashi created or maybe it was a sign of how much maturity Naruto had again over the years that she was no longer terrified of rejection, but one day Naruto decided to confront Shikamaru on her status of the Jinchuuriki of the Kyuubi.

After one of our daily training sessions she had corned Shikamaru before he could sneak back home, and outright asked him if her being the Kyuubi's host would be a problem.

Shikamaru, back slouched more than usual due to exhaustion, hair thoroughly soaked with sweat and plastered against his forehead, sent her a tired glare as before he drawled out, "If I wrote down every single reason why I hate you, the both of you," he amended as he shot me a quick glance from where I stood behind her, "I would have a list over two miles wide. And trust me, you being a Jinchuuriki won't be anywhere on the list. Hell, you could be the reincarnation of the Kyuubi for I cared and it still wouldn't make it on the list. Now will you leave me alone already so I can get some damn rest."

That must have been the first time Shikamaru got to experience one of Naruto's bone breaking hugs because I saw his eyes bulged with pain as she wrapped her arms around him, knocking most of the air out of his lungs. "This," he wheezed, "this is going on the list."

After that Naruto told her mother about our new Sensei, Kakashi.

"He's a dick."

And that was pretty much all she had to say about him.

I couldn't help but give our grey-haired Sensei a sympathetic wince. Kakashi, my man, I don't know what to tell you but you need to shape up fast and do something to redeem yourself because your reputation is in tatters.

Fortunately the cemetery had been mostly empty so we didn't bother anyone with our talking. With the exception of the grave-keeper, a taciturn man that only nodded in greeting whenever we saw him, the only other people we've seen since we got here were an elderly couple who visited a gave a few levels bellow us, paying their respects to dead relatives before leaving only a quarter of an hour later.

This was how it usually was in this time of year. Rather it was like this almost all year round, with the exception of _Obon,_ the traditional time to visit dead relatives, the cemetery was almost always empty. However during the Obon season the cemetery would be crowded, packed full with people as entire families came to visit their dead. So it was actually a good think Naruto preferred visiting on her mom's birthday instead because the experience would have been far more public than either one of us would have liked. Not to mention awkward.

A lot of the more recent graves around us were from the victims of the Kyuubi. And while no one would have begrudged her for coming, it would have made the entire experience rather awkward when we would be surrounded by grieving people mourning their family and loved ones they lost during the Kyuubi attack. So it was better for us to just avoid the cemetery then.

But even had that not been the case we would have still have preferred coming now rather than during Obon. It was far more private this was and we ended up having the entire cemetery to ourselves.

"That's when Ji-ji whacked his pipe on Kakashi-Sensei's head." Naruto lifted her hand up before swinging it down, yelling out 'whack' as she did so before she collapsed into giggles. "It was hilarious mum, you should have seen his face. Well, you couldn't really see his face through his mask and all, but I could tell anyway. And...and...and," Naruto trailed off, drifting into silence before a moment later I felt her slumping on my back, "and this is stupid."

"Naruto?" I asked, glancing behind me.

"This is stupid Hikaru," She muttered, slipping lower to the ground as she slumped further against me.

"What is?"

"This." She waved a hand awkwardly before her, "Trying to hold a conversation when I don't even know what she would say. Heck, I don't even _know_ her."

"Hey," I turned around completely and Naruto, who was still leaning again me, dropped into my lap. I scooted around to make sure she was comfortable, "Don't say that now."

"But it's true." She looked up at me from where her head was nestled on my lap, her blue eyes so bright even in the dark, "I don't know her. Hikaru, I don't know my own mom. I wish that I did but I don't, I don't know a single thing about her. Not one thing. What was she like? What did she hate? Would she laugh at my pranks or disapprove of them? Was she strict like your dad or was she like Mio-san?"

"God I hope not," I murmured, partly serious and partly to brighten the mood. "I don't think the world could survive if there were two Mios."

My little joke, however, did nothing to her cheer up and Naruto continue staring forlornly at the grave. When she spoke again her voice was quite, and there was a tiredness in it that I never wanted to hear coming from her. "Sometimes I feel so stupid doing this," she whispered, "talking to someone I don't even know. I don't even know if she'd like me."

"Now you're just being silly." I brushed away a strand of hair from her face and stared down at her. "Your mother loved you Naruto."

"But Hikaru," She yelled back, her eyes shining brightly with what may have been tears. "I killed her. If she didn't have me she would still be-"

"Hey," I flicked her on the nose, causing her to wince and crinkle her nose in surprise, "none of that now. How many times have we talked about this? Your mother loved you, and nothing is ever going to change that. Not even death. And I know that if she could go back in time and do it all over again, she would still choice to have you, and with her dying breath she'd still tell you," I wrapped my arms loosely around her and lowered my head so that my eye hung over hers, "'_T__hank you for being born'_." I smiled down at the blonde, "And that's a fact."

"For a fact huh?" She responded gruffly back up at me, but even though she tried to hide it, I could tell she was pleased. "How would you know, you never met her either."

"Of course I know." I straightened up but left my arms where they were wrapped around her. "I don't need to have met her to know exactly what she would say if she was here."

"Oh yeah," she smirked up at me, eyebrows raised in challenge, "then tell me, if she was here what would she say?"

Though she tried to make it sound like a joke, there was an edge to her voice that let me know that he was serious. Naruto really did expect me to know what Kushina would say.

There it was again, that absolute faith that this girl held for me. Even though there was no possible way I could have known a thing about Uzumaki Kushina, she would believe every word that I said for no other reason that because it was me who said it. That was one thing I could never understand, just why did Naruto believe in me, trusted me with every drop of her soul, even it came to things I had no right knowing?

But even if I didn't understand why she did, I had no intention of ever proving her wrong.

"Well," I began, thinking back to the words _she_ spoke so long ago for her newborn daughter, "first of all, she'll start off by saying: _Naruto, don't be fussy eater."_

Naruto looked gob-smacked, clearing not expecting me to say that, and she stared up at me with bewildered eyes before breaking out in laughter. "She would not!" Naruto guffawed, "Hikaru~, there is no way she would say _that_! Hahaha."

"Yes, she would." I answered primary, "Now hush and let me finish."

I waited for a few seconds for Naruto to stop her snickering before I carried on. Clearing my throat, I recited the words as well as I could. "_Naruto, don't be a fussy eater.__ Eat a lot and grow up to be a big girl. Take your bath every day. Go to be bed early and sleep well. Make friends, it doesn't matter how many. Just make sure their real friends, people you can trust. Even a few is enough." _

"Got it." She nodded as she slipped her hand into mine and gave it a firm squeeze.

I squeezed back before continuing. _"__And study your ninjutsu, I never was any good at it, maybe you will be." _

Naruto snorted, "Nope."

_"Everybody has things they're good at and things they're not, don't feel bad if can't do it at all."_ It honestly felt as if Kushina knew exactly how her daughter would have responded even so long ago. _"__Make sure to listen to the teachers at the Academy. And remember to avoid the three vices of Shinobi. Don't borrow money if you can help it. Save what you earn from missions." _

"No worries there Mom, I'm rich." She quipped, watching her mother's grave from where she laid her head on my lap.

_"No drinking Alcohol until your twenty. And don't overdo it, you'll ruin your body." _

"As if Hikaru would let me." Naruto grumbled.

"Alcohol is evil and drunks are gross." I told her firmly, thinking about the few times Naruto tried to swipe a drink from one of the adults only for me to stop her. "Now hush and let me finish."

I shut my eyes and took a moment to think of a better way to phrase Kushina's words before speaking. _"__As for men, well I don't know what to say, but there are only men and women in this world, and you'll want to get a boyfriend someday. Just try not to pick a weird one, try to find someone like your father."_

"Sorry Mom, I'm not sure who my dad is." Naruto answered wistfully, as her father's identity is one of the few things that had been hidden from her. However all signs of wistfulness were soon replaced as she gained a thoughtful look on her face. "But if your taste is like mine then Dad probably was a girly-boy wasn't he?"

"Hey!" I glared down at her, feeling vaguely insulted at that description, even if it did happen to accurately describe Minato, but Naruto only snickered in response. "Just shut up and let me finish." I grumbled half-heartedly before resuming.

_"And the fourth warning, watch out for Jiraiya-Sensei." _

Naruto frowned and glanced up at me. "Who?" But I ignored the question and carried on.

_"Naruto you're going to experience a lot of pain and suffering but be sure to remember who you are. Find a goal, find a dream, and don't stop trying until it comes true. There's-There's-There's so much I want to say, to teach you about, I want to stay with you, I love you._

_"__I'm so sorry, I wasn't there to raise you, I wasn't there to love you! __I wish I could have stayed with you._

_ "But most importantly, I want you to know. _

_ "I love you._

_ "And thank you…_

_ "For letting me be your mother, for letting your Dad be your father._

_ "Thank you for being our Daughter._

_ "Thank you."_

Having finished conveying the words she wanted to deliver to her daughter since birth, I drifted into silence and gazed at the grave of Uzumaki Kushina. For a long while neither of us said a thing.

"Though it was only for a short time, even with everything that happened, they- they still-" I stopped and looked down at their daughter. "Naruto, you were really loved."

There was no greater truth than that.

Naruto nodded, unable to speak as her chin trembled slightly while her eyes shone as the tears they held reflect under the moonlight.

"Yeah." she whispered at last, her voice thick with emotion. "I was, wasn't I?"

As always, Naruto didn't ask how I knew this, only that I spoke the truth.

And so we both remained there, Naruto nestled in my lap while my arms lay wrapped around her, one of her hands in mine, and we looked at the grave of her mother and thought of what might have been.

* * *

"Bye Mom." Naruto waved goodbye as she walked away backwards, her wooden sandals _click-clacking_ against the stone floor. "I'll see you again next year."

"Goodbye, Kushina-san." I called out as I trailed after Naruto but didn't bother looking back and kept my eyes on the blonde in case she tripped, "And don't worry, I'll keep an eye on the idiot and make sure doesn't get in too much trouble."

"Hey!" Still walking backwards Naruto shot me a glare. "I'm not an-_ahhh_!"

And just like I suspected she would, Naruto ended up tripping as the edge of her wooden sandals snagged the hem of her kimono, pulling her off balance. Naruto fell backwards, her arms futilely pin-wheeling in an attempt to regain her balance as she dropped to the stone floor.

My hand shot out and snagged Naruto by the hand in the last second, her head dangling barely a foot off the floor.

I quirked an eyebrow down at the blonde, "You were saying?"

"Ah...hahaha," Naruto gave me an awkward laugh as she rubbed the back of her head with her other hand before shrugging. "Oops?

I rolled my eyes at the blonde before lifting her up and setting her back down on her feet.

"Thanks." She flashed me a smile before she resumed walking, facing forward this time.

She hadn't let go of my hand, and I made no comment of it as I let her pull me along after her.

As we begun to make our trek through of the cemetery and back to our homes, I caught sight of another familiar grave just a stone throw away from Kushina's and couldn't resist giving the top of it a friendlily pat. "Nice seeing you again Mito," I said as we passed it by, "I'll be seeing you next year so keep it real and stay awesome."

Naruto shot me a bemused look, probably thrown off as she usually was by my casual attitude towards the dead. "Are you sure you're allowed to do that?" She asked, looking pointedly behind us at Uzumaki Mito's grave stone, "Isn't that, I don't know, disrespectful or something?"

"Nah, Mito's cool." I patted another grave, which just happened to be another Uzumaki. "Besides, the entire purpose of a graveyard is to give people a place to rest. So no one will mind if I hand around a little."

"Dead people, Hikaru." Naruto gave me a deadpanned expressions, "It's made to give _dead_ people a place to rest."

"Exactly," I quipped, feeling an ironic smile tugging on my lips at the thought. I did _die_ after all, so technically I had just as much of right to belong in a graveyard as any of the people buried here. Just because I was reincarnated does not revoke my right to a grave, the living dead had just as much a right to one as the regular dead did. I mean zombies can move around like I could yet no one tried to claim that they didn't belong in a graveyard. I just applied the same logic to me.

Looking around at the thousands of gravestones that littered the hill around me, I waved and gave a mental hello to all of my fellow dead comrades. It was odd really, back in my past life graveyards creeped the crap our of me, especially at night, but now that I've died myself I lost all fear of the place. It was almost like returning back home in some ways.

"Besides," I turned to smile at Naruto as I patted another Uzumaki tomb, "this is the Uzumaki section of the cemetery. And if your relatives were anything like you I doubt they'd mind if I messed around a little."

"Fine." Naruto relented, but not before glancing worriedly around the graveyard. "But don't come crying to me if you find yourself haunted by a ghost."

I found myself rolling my eyes at Naruto. For a girl who would happy fight a bear with nothing but her bare hands, Naruto could be surprisingly timid at times. She had an irrational fear of spirits and ghost, and as a child a well-told ghost story would have clinging to my side, trembling with fear. She had gotten better over the years, but the fear of ghosts had never completely went away.

If only she knew that the hand she was holding technically belong to that of a dead man. I had to bite back the urge to laugh hysterically at the image that thought conjured up.

Lining the path were the graves of the Uzumaki, the last remnants of a once great Clan. After the destruction of Uzushiogakure _– the village hidden in the whirling tides__ – _the surviving members fled to Konoha in hopes of finding refuge with their old allies, which they did. Konoha welcomed the survivors with open arms, of which there were only two dozen in number. With the destruction of their old home, the remaining Uzumaki decided to settle down here and try to make a new home in the village.

Unfortunately the Clan's streak of bad luck followed them to Konoha and by the end of the Third Shinobi War the great Clan had dwindled to but a small handful, having become nothing more but a pale shadow of their glory days. Just like their cousins the Senju, they were targeted by the other villages out of fear of their strength and so shared a similar fate to them. And after the Kyuubi's attack, there remained but one living Uzumaki in the village. The rest of Naruto's relatives lay buried all around us.

Well, all of her relatives with the notable exception for her father.

I had no idea where Namikaze Minato's grave was. They didn't bury him along with his wife, I checked, nor was he buried along with the rest of the Namikaze Clan. It was only after I searched the Senju section of the cemetery and failed to find either Hashirama's or Tobirama's grave that I figured out that the Hokages were buried in a separate location. With techniques like the_ Edo Tensei _out there it made sense they would want to keep their bodies out of the public reach, even if Shinobi bodies were traditional cremated.

I considered asking around about Minato's grave but I decided it would be better if I just left things be. While the identity of Naruto's mother was common knowledge, her father wasn't it. If I started asking around about Minato some people might get suspicious. Besides there was nothing I could do even if I managed to tumble over his grave.

A comfortable silence had fallen between us as we by the time we reached the staircase that ran up the hill, neither one of us feeling the need to talk, so the only noise that could be heard in the quiet night was the chirping of crickets and the _click-clack_ of Naruto's sandals. This time with Naruto walking by my side instead of riding on my back, we began the long climb down together. Our pace was leisurely as we went down the steps, neither of us in any hurry to reach home despite the lateness of the hour.

Our journey down the stairs afforded us an unobstructed view of the village of Konoha, which looked like it fallen asleep in the short time since I last paid attention to it. Hardly an hour earlier it had been blazing with life like a bonfire but in the short time since it looked like most of the villagers had gone to bed.

There were a few splashes of lights here and there pouring out from windows in the residential district, probably a few night owls, and on the main roads there were strings of light that showed that there were business still open and running even this late but for the most part, the village was dark as it's denizens slept the night away.

_Click-clack, click-clack, click-clack, __click-__….._

It took me a few seconds to notice that sound of her footsteps had stopped and another second to realise what that meant.

"Naruto?" Halting my steps I turned around and to find the girl a few steps behind me, having slipped her hand out of mine at some point. "Naruto?" I repeated, but she didn't seem to hear me. Her face was turned away from me, her eyes locked at something at the distance.

Naruto's beautiful yellow kimono was no longer in the pristine condition it had been this morning, not surprise after all the time she spent either sitting or lying on the ground. Her obi, the sash, had come loose at some point and sat slightly askew on her waist while the kimono itself had gained several creases and wrinkles in it's folds. Strands of golden coloured hair had fallen loose from the elaborate design they had stylized in and now fell freely down her back.

Naturally Naruto didn't notice how she looked and wouldn't have cared even if she did notice. To her, the only purpose of getting dressed up was for her mother's sake and now that she had finished with what she wanted, she no cared what she looked liked.

Naruto's face, illuminated by the light of the moon as it peeked out from behind the clouds, was unreadable. Her expression was blank, an expressionless mask that hide what she was thinking from me as she looked toward the horizon, eyes riveted at something beyond the village. It was disconcerting to see her like this.

Following her line of sight I found myself looking at the Hokage monument where the faces of the Hokages, both past and present, were carved into the face of the cliff, where they continued to watch over the village in death as they did in life.

More specifically, I discovered that Naruto was staring at one face in particular, the one that sat on the far right of the mountain. She was staring into the visage of the Fourth Hokage, Namikaze Minato, Konoha's famed yellow flash, the fasted man in the Elemental Nations and the master of the Hiraishin – _The Flying Thunder God Technique_.

And more relevantly he was also the man that defeated the Kyuubi when it attack Konoha, single-handedly stopping its rampage in time before it could completely wipe out the entire village, but failed to do it in time to save Naruto's mother. He was also the man who chose to seal the beast into the belly of an innocent newborn baby.

Thus dooming the child to carry the burden of the beast for the rest of her life.

"I hate him."

She spoke at last, eyes never leaving her father's face, the three words cutting through the silence of the night like a knife. Her voice was so cold, deprived of their usual warmth that I almost shivered.

"...But...Naruto," I began, awkwardly, wanting to stay something but not sure what. "The fourth...he's-"

My words died still-born on my lips when Naruto turned to me. Her blue eyes hard and unwavering, not a single fragment of uncertainty to be found anywhere inside of them as she stared down at me with a blank look on her face.

Then she spoke the words again.

"I hate him."

At the face of that, I found that there was nothing I could say.

"…I see." I finally said and smiled sadly at my friend, the cool night breeze tugging on my hair. I found it hard to watch her like this, her usually bright expression turning so hard, that I turned away and looked at the Fourth's face as it hung over the village instead.

Oh, how I wished I could laugh at the irony of it all.

_Ah, __to be hated by your own child_. I gave the stone face of Naruto's father a wistful look. _I know how that feels. Sucks, doesn't it? _

I chuckled sadly before shrugging. _Ah, well. It's only natural I supposed._ I turned back around and began climbing up the stairs. _It's only natural for a parent to love their children, but no one ever said that the opposite had to be true._

I covered the few steps that separated us and stopped once I stood by her side. Reaching out, I took hold of her hand and gripping it firmly in my own.

"Come on." I gently led her by the hand down the stairs, "Let's head home."

She didn't resist and followed silently after me as we made our way back home, the _click-clack_ of her sandals echoing off the stone steps returning once again as we resumed our trek.

The rest of the journey down was spent in silence, not a single word passing between us until we stepped off the off the staircase.

It was a long walk down.

* * *

"Here's your meal." The waiter set a bowl of _gy__u__don_ before me, a dish consisting from rice covered with beef and onions, and I almost felt myself drooling at the sight of it.

"Thank you," I called out but the waiter was already gone, rushing around to sever the other dozen or so waiting customers their orders. So without further ado I snapped open a pair of chopsticks, I began to dig in.

As I about to take another bite from my meal an elbow bumped into my arm, knocking my food out of my chopstick and onto the table. I stared down mournfully at the wasted food for a second, the first bite of a meal was always the best, before I turned and levelled a glare at the man seated to my right.

Unfortunately, he didn't seem to notice. The dark haired man was dressed up in white robes and a black overcoat wasn't even looking in my direction, instead he had his back towards me as he enthusiastically continued to chatter with his friends, who had dragged their stools so that they all gathered around him, and he was swinging his left arm about as he told them some joke involving his wife.

After of few second of futile glaring, I look away and returned to eating my meal. There was no point on telling him off, not when it was painfully obvious that the man was drunk. Even faced away I could smell the alcohol reeking off of him and the way he kept swaying on his seat told me he already was reaching his limit. The guy was also speaking far louder than he needed to and he kept snickering every few seconds, occasionally slamming his left hand on the counter as he laughed.

God how I hate drunks, always have. I hated alcohol entirely, the very idea of something affecting my mind was off-putting to say the least. While I didn't care if someone enjoyed a glass or two, I couldn't stand it when they got flat out drunks. It was…_disturbing_ to see normally intelligent and well-mannered people dissolve into clowns whenever they got into their drinks. It was one of the reasons why I rarely ever touched the stuff.

Again the asshole next to me jabbed me with his elbow though this time I managed keep hold of my meal. I ignored him completely in favour of digging into my meal. I didn't know if it was because of how hungry I was or if the chief was having a good day, but whatever it was the food tasted absolutely amazing today. It the best meal I could remember having in a long while and I savoured each and every bite as I scarfed it down. And there was no way was I about to let a little bit of bad company ruin it.

I wish I could have simply picked my dish up and found someplace else to sit but the place was jam-packed with people, there simply wasn't any room anywhere else. The restaurant was a cozy little thing, with about a three or four long tables filling up the open space in the middle while a row of tiny booths lined up again one wall. There was a long counter that stretched almost from one end of the store to another with a line of stools set before it, while on the opposite wall from the booths was a small stage, which usually sat abandoned.

The restaurant was so currently filled to the brim with people that when I entered the place I couldn't find any place to sit. Crowds of men and women filled the benches that bracketed the long tables in the middle, leaving me with no room to squeeze in, while the booths were equally occupied with couples or even small families. I even spotted a few children mixed in with the people who sat on the table, though why would any parent bring their kids out so late at night was beyond me.

I had actually gotten really lucky to find this spot. After a quick futile glance around the restaurant for a place to sit, I had been about to give up and leave when at the last second a space opened up along the counter opened up as a customer had stood up, having just finished paying his bill and was getting ready to leave.

Unfortunately, that seat just happened to be next to this obnoxious bastard. Ah well, it was probably for the best, even if a spot did open up I would have probably just ended up next to another drunk. There must have been some kind of celebration or party going on that I hadn't heard about because it looked like half the people in the room had a drink in their hand and were either already drunk or well on their way to being so.

It was a bit of a surprise to see to find the place so busy so late at night. While the restaurant may have been a fairly popular spot to eat I had never seen it so crowded before, not even during the day time which was usually their busiest hours. The last couple of times I popped in this late the restaurant was all but deserted, with only a handful of other customers in here with me. But right now, the place was overflowing with so many people that it was obvious by the haggard looks the waiter were sporting that they could barely keep up with their number.

There was even a musician playing on the small stage, something that I can't remember ever seeing before. The stage usual sat empty no matter the time the day but tonight, a young lady in a dark blue kimono with beautiful black hair that reached down to her feet was on the stage, kneeling before a _koto_, a tradition stringed instrument. And it was obvious to all listening that she was remarkably skilled. The way her fingers flowed over the instruments like ripples on a lake as they plucked at the strings was memorizing to watch, and more that a few customers paused in their conversation to stop and listen to her play.

It was a shame that Naruto didn't tag along though, I'm sure she was enjoyed the food here if she was anywhere near as hungry as I was, and unlike me she wouldn't have minded the crowd either. But unfortunately, she wanted to spend some time alone.

Visiting Kushina's grave has almost become something of an annual tradition for the two of us. And like most traditions we ended up establishing a certain routine after a while that we went through every year.

Each year we would start by wake up early in the morning and enjoy a nice big breakfast to last us the day. Afterwards, we would get cleaned up and dress in our Sunday best. This year I had to leave early to pick up the flowers, but normally we'd leave the house together and head towards the cemetery. Once there we would spend the entire day in front of her mother's grave, and I do mean the _entire_ day. Once Naruto finished saying everything she had to say to her mother, which usually took so long that we only left the hill long after the sun had set and night could just as easily been described as early morning. Once we were back in the streets of Konoha both of us would split up and head our separate ways.

Yeah, it was the last point that I always had trouble with.

Naruto always acted a bit strange around this time of year, and after visiting her mother she always seemed to want to spend some time alone, to reflect on things I guess. And while I couldn't understand why she wanted to be _completely_ alone afterwards, I decided to respect her wishes and give her some space. Which is why she would spend the night without me in her apartment while I head back to the compound.

And while I did worry a bit about her spending the night alone, I knew she probably needed some time spent away from everyone else. Besides, if I got too worried I could always check up on her with the Byakugan, just a quick peek from time to time to make sure she was okay.

Have I mentioned how much I loved these eyes?

And sure, while some people might call it an invasion of privacy for me to use the Byakugan to check on my blonde friend, I would like to point out that this was the same girl who, at the age of six, had splatters of her own blood staining the ceiling of her apartment. And thought it was completely normal. God knows how much trouble she could get into at twelve. So for her sake, along with everyone around her that she may inadvertently traumatize, I made sure to periodically check up on her.

Anyway, my original plan had been to head straight back home and slip into bed, maybe even try and sneak in a quick bite to eat from the kitchen along the way. But as I was walking down the street which would take me to the compound I heard the sound of a _koto _playing, drifting in the air of the quiet street. And it was such a beautiful melancholic melody that I had to pause and investigate. When I noticed that the sound was coming from this restaurant it hit me, I was _starving_.

I couldn't understand how I failed to notice how hungry I was any sooner. I hadn't had a bite to eat since breakfast, and that must have been a good fourteen hours ago if not longer, so it was hardly surprising that I was starving. Hell, it was more surprising that my stomach hadn't been growling in protest by now.

Which is why I was stuffing my face like there was no tomorrow. I mean sure, _gyudon_ wasn't anything like the five-star meals I could get the chief back at the compound to prepare, it was barely a step above fast food really, but sometimes it was the simple food that were the best. And I'm going to enjoy every last bite-

-My thoughts _screeched_ to halt as an elbow smashed into the side of my meal, knocking the bowl completely off the counter.

It was as if time had slowed to a crawl. I watched as the beef bowl tumbled over and over in the air with infinite detail, strips of meat being tossed out in all direction while the grains of rice trialled after it, spilled out of the confines of the bowl. It was like watching a car crash, I could see it all happening in slow motion.

I tried to move, tried to force my hands to reach out and save it, but my body would not respond. My hands sat still in mid-air, pointlessly holding the chopsticks between their fingers, unwilling to obey my frantic commands to reach out and grab the food. It felt as I was frozen in time, helpless to do anything more than watch as my delicious bowl of food tumbled closer and close to the ground until-

*_crash_*

Roars of laughter erupted from right, the group of drunken men doubling as they howled in amusement over some joke, completely oblivious and unaware of the crime one of their own had just committed.

I stared down at the broken bowl of gyudon, it's contents splattered over the wooden floor, with a look of utter despair on my face, feeling my heart breaking at its loss. For a few second I just sat there staring disbelieving at my lost meal, unable to muster the will to move as I felt my very soul mourn at its loss, that is until another round of laughter erupted and I felt my despair replaced with a scalding hot rage fueled with righteous fury.

A great evil had been committed this night, and someone will pay for it, dearly.

"Alright! That's it!" I smashed my hands on the counter as I stood up and glared at the perpetrator, the drunkard on my right who _still_ was facing away from me. "You, me, outside! Right now!"

"Oh?" The man didn't even bother turning around to face me, he just glanced over his left shoulder at me. His cheeks were flush red from alcohol as his brown eye stared unsteadily at me. His eye shifted down towards the floor then widened when he caught sight of the victim of his crime. "_Oh! _Did I do that? Sorry, sorry, kiddo, didn't mean to."

"It matters not your intentions fiend, only your actions." I told him in my coldest tone, a stark contrast to the boiling rage that I felt fill my veins as my mind raced with possible places I could stash the body once I was through with him. "And you have committed a grave sin this evening, one that can only be repaid with your blood."

"_Hahaha_, don't make such a scary face kiddo, you're beginning to look like my wife. _Hahaha_." The madman, for I had no doubt he must have been one, had the audacity to laugh at me. Well, we will see if he will continue laughing once I smashed in his kneecaps. "It's my bad, so here, let me make it up to you."

The drunkard raised his left arm in the air to signal the waiter, his other arm covered and tucked under his jacket, and once he caught the waiter's eyes he held up a single finger. "One more bowl for the kid here, put it on my tab. You know what, better make it two, the kid's too skinny, looks like he could use the extra meat on his bones."

When the waiter nodded his understanding the man glanced back over his shoulder at me, still not bothering to turn and fully face my way. "There, sorry again about that but this should make things right. So forgive this old man, alright kiddo?"

I tried to continued to glare imperiously at the older man but I ended up being betrayed by my own body, as my stomach chose that precise moment to rumbled loudly at the promise of so much food. For some reason I actually felt even hungrier now than I had when I walked in, probably because my meal was interrupted before I was anywhere near finished.

The old man and his friends must have heard my stomach rumble, and how could they not when it sounded like a dying whale, because they burst into peals of laughter. I could feel myself blushing at their response, my cheeks turning warm, but after shooting them a quick glare, I turned away and returned to my stool and tried to wait for my meal to arrive in peace.

Naturally that was not to be, as I had barely sat back down into my stool when the old man began speaking to me again. "_Ho~~_, what' this? Kiddo, your a Hyuuga ain't you?" He stared into my eyes from over his shoulder before he turned back to his friends. "Hey fellas, lookie here. We got a real live Hyuuga with us."

"What do you want?" I groused, feeling too fed up to bother conjuring any real heat in my voice.

That was one of the downsides of being a Hyuuga compared to almost any other Clan in the village, everyone could tell with a glance you were one. Other ninjas could have at least blended in with a crowd if they wanted to, even the Uchiha, when there were still any left in the village anyway, had the option of deactivating their Sharingan. But we Hyuuga didn't have that option, even in it's inactive state it was clear that our eyes were not normal so we naturally tend to stick out of any crowd.

"Ah, now don't be like that." He waved lazily at me with his left hand, his right still tucked into his coat. "We just have a question we want you to answer, that's all." He spun in his seat so that he now faced the counter instead of toward his friends, and almost ended up losing his balance for his effort. The man actually had to latch onto the counter with his hand to stop himself from toppling over.

He's change of position did, however, grant me a better look of his face and I noticed for the first time the oddly shaped scar he had on his chin. "See, earlier me and the boys were talking about genjutsu and how it works. So with you being a shinobi and all, you could answer a few things about it for us."

"Actually I can't," I replied curtly, hoping that the annoying man would take the hint and leave me alone. "Hyuugas can't use genjutsu."

Well, that wasn't precisely true. We could use genjutsu just as easily as anyone else, especially the simple ones like the basic clone techniques. It's when we attempted the more complex ones that difficulties start to crop up.

The heart of the problem lies ironically with our Clan's greatest strength, the Byakugan. Simply put, our eyes were too perfect. While it is well known that the Byakugan can grant's its wielder 360 degrees of vision for a distance of miles, what was less known was that even in it's inactive state the Byakugan granted it's user a perfect clarity of vision that could never be matched by ordinary eyes.

And I do mean perfect. Not only has there never existed a Hyuuga that was born colour blind or one that needed prescription lens, but even in their passive state our eyes can see farther and with far better clarity than the eyes of the average ninja.

And there lies the problem, none of use knew what the world looks like with normal or even bad eyesight.

How can we craft an illusion of the world when we don't know how the world looks like through normal eyes? Whenever we try to cast a genjutsu on our target, they immediately realise they are in one and try to break out of it. And that's not because our genjutsu were badly crafted but the opposite, they were _too_ well made.

While most ninjas failed to add in enough details to their illusions, we ended up making ours too detailed instead. The colours in our illusion were far richer compared to what a normal person would see while objects in the distance appear far clearer than they were supposed to, and that's because that's how _we_ see the world through the Byakugan.

In short, when we try to create an illusion of the world around us, we inadvertently create an image of what we would see through the Byakugan instead of normal eyes. And that's because no Hyuuga – with the exception of me – knows that the world looks like through normal eyes.

Which is why, with only on a couple of exceptions, my Clan as a whole tended to avoid genjutsu entirely. There was, however, an upside to all this. The very thing that prevented us from using genjutsu also made us resistant to them even with our Byakugan dormant.

Just like how we Hyuuga had no idea how the world looked like through normal eyes, the average ninja has no idea how the world appears through ours. So there is no way they could cast a convincing illusion over us when they had no idea how we see the world.

"Oh?" The man's head bobbed drunkenly as he stared ahead. "So it _is_ true that it's impossible for a Hyuuga to fall for one."

"Yes." I lied through my teeth. There was a way to snare us in a genjutsu, at least when our eyes were inactive it was possible to do so, but there was no way I was going to tell him that. Even if it was common knowledge, it was the policy of the Clan to always deny any possible weaknesses that our eyes may hold. "No would you please leave me alone."

"_Aww~~__, _come one." The man drawled out as seated in his seat, still facing ahead instead of towards me, and from the way his head kept bobbing up and down he honestly looked like he was about tip over and fall asleep any second now. "Just one last question. One more and I promise I would leave you be after. Alright, kiddo?"

Sniffling a sigh I just nodded resignedly, and he must caught the motion out of the edge of his eye because he started speaking.

"Well, it's like this kiddo." He waved a hand lazily before him as if swatting away a fly. "If it's so impossible for a Hyuuga to get snarled by a genjutsu, then _why the hell haven't you realised you're in one?"_

As if his words were the signal, the young lady on the stage playing the _koto,_ her dexterous fingers plucking its strings skilfully and producing the beautiful melody that had constantly filled the room with its music ground to a stop, her fingers stilled in their place above the instrument and the entire restaurant fell silent.

And the hunger gnawing in the pit of my stomach, the one that filled my thoughts with an almost overwhelming need to eat, disappeared like morning mist as if it was never there. And along with the hunger I felt my mind begin to clear as the fog that had been clouding my thoughts, so subtly that I never noticed it was there, was lifted.

And for the first time since I stepped into restaurant, no, since I hear the koto being played as I walked down the street, my thoughts formed with crystal clarity and my mind raced as I realised what had happened to me.

_What the-?_

I spun in my seat and stared at Koto player, the lady in blue who knelt on stage, who was now staring right back at me with a blank expressionless face.

The brown eyes that met mine were like ice, so very cold. No, not cold, they were empty, hollow. When I looked them it felt I was looking into the eyes of corpse instead of a living person, and the empty expression on her face wasn't helping that impression.

It soon dawned on me that I couldn't hear anything else, that when the playing of the koto was silenced so had everything else. I could no longer hear the noise coming from the rest of the diners, who just seconds ago were chatting and laughing merrily as they drunk the night away. The entire restaurant had fallen silent, and as I looked around I realised why.

They were all staring at me, each and every single last one of them. From the diners, men, women, and even the handful of children, all of whom were sitting perfectly still in their seats, to the waiters who held up trays of food in the arms, the heads of every soul in here had swirled around to face me, watching me, their blank hollow eyes never blinking. Not even the children's.

And just like the koto player on stage, the hundreds of eyes that gazed at me from around the room were dead, empty things. Not a flicker of life burned in any of them. They all watched me with blind sightless eyes of a corpse, and I felt my skin crawl as those dead eyes bored into my soul.

"Let this be a lesson to you, Hyuuga Hikaru." The drunken man spoke from behind me, but he didn't sound drunk anymore.

His voice had turned hard, harsh and unforgiving.

The sound of it caused the hair on the back of neck stand on end and I felt an abject terror grip my soul, all of my instincts urging me to run, to get the hell away from the thing that stood behind me. It felt as I was a rabbit that was about to be caught by tiger, so close to dying that I could feel it's breath on the back of my neck as it's jaws were about to clamp down on my throat.

_Kill__ing__ Intent,_ my mind supplied helpfully, but even knowing what it was didn't help make it any less horrible to experience. The malevolence I felt coming from behind me was on a scale beyond anything I felt before. Unlike Kakashi's which had been fuelled with the passion of rage, this one was devoid of passion entirely though was no less deadly for it, it was like the uncaring cold cruelty of winter's breath.

It took every ounce of will I had in me to fight that fear, to push my instinctive urge to flee back down, and I forced myself to turn around so I could face the man.

He hadn't moved since I had last laid my eyes on him, he was still sitting on his stool and still facing the counter instead of me, so even now I could only see the left side of his face. But instead of his slouched form that kept swaying unevenly, his back now stood iron straight while all signs of weakness had bled out from his body.

And for the first time I noticed the strip of white cloth that circled around his head, almost entirely hidden within his black hair. A bandage.

"No matter how confident you hold in your prowess, no matter how certain you are in your safety," the man pulled his bandaged right arm from out his coat and used it to push himself toward me, steadily revealing more of his face to my eyes, "you must never allow yourself to lower you guard young Hyuuga. Because there does not exist a place where you are truly safe, this world holds no place that can keep you away from harm, for you are always, _always_ in danger of getting killed."

As he turned to full face me, I got my first proper look at his face and the first thing that stood out to me was the bandages that covered most of the right side of his face. More precisely, it completely covered his right eye.

I finally realised who I was talking to.

And when I did, I wished that I had listened to my instincts and ran while I still had the chance.

_ "_Hello, Hikaru." The voice was devoid of any warmth, cold as the single eye that watched me. "I have meaning to meet with your for quite a long time though this will be our first actual meeting."

_Oh, Shit!_

The man gave me a brief nod of his head in greeting. "Allow me to introduce myself."

_Shit! Shit! Shit!_

"My name is Shimura Danzo."

I_'m dead! I'm so fucking dead!_

He must have read the fear on my face because he gave me a firm nod. "I see you have heard of me."

_The monster hidden beneath the leaves has finally come for me._

* * *

**_*Chapter End*_**

**Author's notes:**

_And so Danzo finally makes an appearance at last. How did he turn out? Hopefully I got the first impression of him pat down._

_Oh, and unlike with canon I'm going to make this man not only terrifying but as competent as hell. No sacrificing his sharingan eyes because he couldn't dodge shuriken throws from Sasuke for this guy. He's going to be a real monster. Danzo was supposed to be a candidate for the Hokage along with Sarutobi, and it's going to show. One of the alternate titles I had for this story was _'the monster hidden within the leaves_' but I realised that the title could apply to Danzo as well so I went with current one (it's also easier to remember)._

_And the next chapter we will get some more hints of the Uchiha massacre and what was Itachi's reaction to his brother's disappearance. Just a glimpse though, but I know many of you wanted to know more about him and his reaction._

_Well that's it for now. So how did I do? Did you enjoy the grave scene along with Naruto's reaction to both of her parents? Danzo's appearance? Please tell me, all feedback big and small is always appreciated._

_Hope you enjoyed the chapter and thanks for reading._


	10. Chapter 10: They call Him Danzo (Part 1)

**Author's Notes:**

Happy Christmas Eve everyone (or whatever holidays you may celebrate), and to help you enjoy the holidays I pumped you out a new chapter of your favorite (hopeful) Naruto story.

Now, while this chapter is on the short side, do not worry, its part of much bigger chapter which will be posted soon. I have over another 10K words written out that I planed to post on Christmas along with what was written bellow, but I wasn't sure if I would make it in time (still have around 2K left to write out and a ton of editing to do). So I decided to post this first and the rest later. But don't worry, even if I don't get it out by Christmas, I'll defiantly get it out withing the next few days at worst as I'm almost finished.

And as some of you may know, I had gotten a job recently, which has cut into my writing time (and is the reason why my release speed dropped), but never fear, as I plan to do my best to juggle both work and my personal time until I can my written back up to reasonable speed again, so don't worry me about dropping this story.

Now, without further a due, let the chapter begin.

* * *

_They Call Him Danzo_

One day, my father told me a secret.

I had thought I understood. Twelve years ago, when I had first awakened to this world, I thought I knew what it meant to live in such a place. It was a world full of lies, where every shadows could be hiding a silent killed and even the kindness smiles could be nothing but an empty mask to hide a cold heart.

I thought I understood that this world was one where only the strong survived and the weak perished, and that kindness was nothing but a liability. Back then I truly believed I knew what it meant to live in a world full of monsters.

Then with a single sentence, my father taught me how little I understood

_The Uchiha Clan was slaughtered by Konoha._

Shadows danced on my father's face, which was as blank and hard as I had ever seen it, as the single candle in the room flickered. We were alone, so only I would ever remember the words he had spoken back then.

That morning, the one after my twelve birthday, my last as an Academy student, my father called for me. He had brought me here, to this tiny room in the heart of the compound, bare of any furnishing but the worn tatami mats we sat on and the single lit candle sitting between us.

Around us runes lined the walls, engraved into the wood by human hands long ago and were filled so densely with Chakra that I could sense them without resorting to my eyes. It felt like I was standing next to an open oven, the Chakra in those runes lapping on my skin like waves of heat, and had I tried to flash open my eyes – my all-seeing Byakugan – I would have found that my vision could not pierce beyond those walls.

No, that was not precisely true. I could see through the walls, despite the runes best efforts my sight still managed to pierce through them as they did everything else, and with a single glance I knew where everyone in the compound stood. From my mother who was tending the flowers in her garden, to my Hanabi who was trying her best to help our mother but failing to do anything but dirty her clothing with her efforts though neither seemed to mind, to Naruto who snoozed contently in the bedroom next to my own, dreaming who knows what.

I could see them all, but I could not see them clearly.

The wall distorted my sight, it felt as if looking though a pair of old prescription lenses or even through a wall of running water; ever so slightly out of focused. I could still see everything around me but the small tiny details, they were now beyond me., the Chakra running the wall from the runes in a constant but fluctuating stream made sure of that.

And in a single moment of contemplation I understood their puropse. The runes were not meant to protect us from outsiders trying to listen in, but from the rest of the Clan.

We may not be able to hear with our eyes but that did not mean we could not understand what was being spoken. Lip reading, though an uncommon skill due to precision needed to focus one eyes on a person lips and lungs from afar, was not a skill possessed by me alone.

And it was here, in a room that no one could learn the words spoken between the two of us, that my father told me all the secrets of my Clan.

It was amazing the amount of dirty secrets a Shinobi Clan can accumulate over the centuries, and how every one of them had to be kept a careful track of least they return to bite them in the ass one day. As the future leader, I was expected to manage the Clan and its secrets, and as I was about to become a Genin it was decided that the time has come for me to be inducted into the dirtier aspects of being a Clan Heir.

And so from the centuries of secrets that my father held in head, the knowledge of which he had received from his own father, who in turn had been given from his own father and so on for who knew how many generations, he chose to begin with the most recent.

He told me the truth behind the Uchiha massacre.

How all of Konoha played a hand in it.

Leaders from three of the four Noble Clans of Konoha; Aburame, Akimichi and Hyuuga.

Leaders from the four largest Clans not among the noble four; Inuzuka, Nara, Sarutobi, Shimura, Yamanaka.

The Anbu Commander.

And of course the Hokage.

All of them had played a part in the extermination of the Uchiha.

They all saw the signs, how could they not. It was obvious to anybody watching that the Uchiha had been unhappy. They had all noticed their discontent, how unsatisfied they were with their position in the Village, and when the entire Clan had begun to withdraw into themselves, alienating themselves further from the rest of the village, they had all been watching and took note of it.

The discontent of the Uchiha was an old grievance, there from the time of the Village's founding. They had been passed over not once, not twice, not even thrice but on four separate occasions when it came to deciding who would lead the Village. Though they were widely considered by many to be the most powerful Clan in the Elemental nations, not once had any of their members bore the title of Hokage.

The discontent had been there for years, long before the Kyuubi incident; the Kyuubi's rampage and the rumors that an Uchiha was behind the attack only helped flame what was already there. Their resentment over slights, real and imagined, built over the years until it began to festered like a diseased limb, poisoning their hearts against the very village they had sworn to protect.

The other Clans, they saw the signs, they knew which direction the wind was blowing and that trouble was brewing just beyond the horizon. They had all gathered together to deal with the problem, and after months of meeting, discussion and planning, a decision was made.

So, like the metaphoric diseased limb, they decided to amputate the problem.

It didn't take much convincing. At first they had wanted to reconcile with the Uchiha, to mend the rift that grew between the Village and its oldest Clan, but once they discovered that the Uchiha were planning to perform a coupe all talks of reconciliation were thrown out the window.

The decision was made that very night. It was unanimous.

The Uchiha was sentenced to death for treason.

Traitors deserved no mercy.

That was the truth behind the Uchiha massacre.

Every member of the Clan, every man, woman, child, every mother, father, son, daughter, husband, wife, brother, sister, young and old, all were to be executed – none were to be spared.

I listened as my father told me with clear and passionless words the role he played in it, as if he was discussing the weather rather than the slaughter of an entire Clan. From the oldest half blind crones to the crying babes clench to their mother's breast, all butchered to the last. And not only did he support it, he help make it happen.

Really, these ninjas made me look normal.

It when then, as I laid stunned by the revelation, that a stay thought crossed my mind and I had to stifle the urge to laugh.

Looks like owed Sasuke an apology, turned out he was right all along.

Konoha _did_ murder his Clan.

_Oops_, I'll be sure to send him flowers if I ever drop by his grave for a visit.

Though now I look back at it, I shouldn't have really been surprised by it. It was actually more of an astonishment that I hadn't figured it out myself. All the clues were there, the signs laid out before my eyes for me to see. If only I had bothered to stop and think, to puzzle on the holes and wonder rather than gloss over it all like I had.

I, at twelve, could see any inch of the Village I choose so long as I stood within its boundaries, and I knew I was not the only who could. So that brings the question, 'how had Itachi managed to murder his entire Clan without anyone noticing or jumping in to help?'

He couldn't have killed all of them in silence, not when there were over a hundred of them in total, several of who were trained and highly experienced ninjas. There must have been a battle, a clash of steel and an exchange of jutsu, no matter how brief it may have been, so why hadn't anyone noticed? In an entire village full of ninjas, who had all sorts of abilities from super hearing to Chakra sensors to eyes that can see for miles and through walls, how had he gotten away with it without a single person noticing it happening?

Simple, he didn't.

They had all just looked the other way.

On the day of the Uchiha Massacre, they made sure that Konoha was emptied. The majority of the ninjas who were responsible for guarding the region of the Village where the Uchiha compound was located were given emergency missions and assigned elsewhere, to the borders of the Land of Fire where '_reports_' of increased activity of foreign ninjas had been sighted. While other people, who like me had the ability to sense what was happening from a distance, were either sent outside of the Village on random missions or assigned to a location within the Village that would place the Uchiha compound outside of the range of their respective senses.

All of which was done to make sure that no one would catch sight of something they shouldn't have and try to interfere. Due to this, the Village was almost entirely barren of ninjas, holding only a small fraction of the usual population it usually had available.

The real irony of it all was that because the Village was so empty, the Uchiha had decided to attempt the Coupe far sooner than they initially planned. With the Village so empty of forces they had a golden opportunity to act, one that they had no intentions of letting slip from their finger.

Had it been under any other circumstance, the Uchiha may have been suspicious to discover the Village so empty, but instead all they saw was the opportunity it presented. To them, who wanted to overthrow Konoha, it must have been like a Godsend. It was the perfect opportunity to strike, and given another day to prepare, they probably would have. It was nothing but pure karma that the very night before they intended to betray the Village, they were betrayed instead.

And so, Itachi slaughtered his Clan, and when the time came for him to make his escape they made sure to leave a large hole in Village's security. S Rank or not, there was no way he could have gotten past all guards patrolling the village undetected, not without being forced to kill some of them. And yet, other than the Uchiha that died that day, Itachi hadn't killed a single Konoha Shinobi during his escape.

If I had only bothered to think on it, then I would had realised that the only way that would have been possible was if he had inside help getting away.

Everything made sense, even why the Hokage would bring the other Clans into the fold when the time came to execute the Uchiha rather than try and carry it our in secret. Could you imagine the what would happen if anyone would find out? Civil war.

There was no way that the other major Clans in Konoha would let the matter lie if they ever found out that Hokage had allowed an entire Clan to be exterminated, a noble one that co-founded the Village, it would have sparked a civil war at worst or have him imprisoned at best.

And besides, it would have been stupid to try and keep it a secret. There was no way the other Clans wouldn't have figured it out, they had to blind not to.

The Uchiha steadily secluding themselves over the years from the rest of the Village behind their compound walls, shutting everyone out as all the while rumors for their rising discontent and dark muttering continued to rise. Then over night the Uchiha, a trouble making but extremely powerful Clan, was wiped out over night by a single Shinobi, one who had no motive other than insanity.

No, it wouldn't take much to realised there was something strange going on beneath the surface – and with the resources some of the Clans had in their disposable, it wouldn't take much for one of them to put the pieces together.

But if they were brought in on it, well, then things would be different.

They – every single one of the Clans agreed – that none would be spared, not even the children. As should any of the survivors ever discover the truth, that it was their Village that was responsible for their Clan's demise, they would seek out revenge. It was a rather common tale in the Elemental Nations for children of a fallen Clan to try and avenge it. They were duty bound; avenge their Clan or die trying, no other option was acceptable.

So no, there would be no survivors, no children that would grow older and stronger in their midst, trained by the Village's own resources, fed by its food, protected by their power, only for them to end up betraying it in the end.

All would be killed, for the good of the village.

All but for one reluctant exception.

Uchiha Sasuke, only he was to be spare. That was the price for Itachi's loyalty. His Clan he would slaughter without hesitation; his cousins, uncles and aunts, his father and even his own mother, he would kill them all, if not gladly then for duty. But not his brother, never him. He was the only one who he would not forsake for the safety of the Village.

And reluctantly, the Clans all agreed he would be spared. They all swore that they would not seek retribution upon him for the actions of his Clan, and that he would be treated as any other member of the Village. To secure Itachi's loyalty, they would allow Sasuke to live.

But still, they were uneasy. They all understood the risk that Sasuke represented. Right now he was harmless, nothing more than a cub. But time had a way of changing that, and as the years go by he would grow, both wiser and stronger. And one day, should he every discover the truth, Konoha may find itself with an anger tiger within its walls.

But still, it was a price they had to pay, and so they paid it.

They agreed with Itachi's price, but they were apprehensive. For they all knew that so long as Sasuke live, the business of the Uchiha clan would never be truly finished.

And well, I took care of that unfinished business.

Only now that I had all the piece in front of me do I realised how unbelievably lucky I had been that night.

To give room for Itachi to escape, security in Konoha had been lowered significantly. Guards normally patrolling the streets were sent to the boarders instead, ninjas on their downtime in the Village were sent away on emergency missions, while many of those that still remained were sent to track down and capture Itachi. And most important of all, the Uchiha, the Village Police Force, no longer existed. Over a hundred ninjas who duty was to patrol Konoha's streets and guard the inner city were gone.

While the Clans and the Hokage had anticipated it, they could not act on that knowledge, not without giving themselves away. It would have looked far too suspicious to have a newly trained police-force ready to take the streets the same day the last one died. To make the Uchiha's demise appear like the actions of a single mad man rather than an order from the Village, they needed to appear as blindsided by the incident as everyone else. So they allowed the natural chaos and confusion that would follow such an event to reign for a time before they reestablished order.

For the following two days after the massacre the Village was so barren of ninjas that had a foreign army tried to invade then, they would have probably succeeded. And in that forty-eight hour period, the whole of Konoha was in chaos as it scrambled to recall its ninjas and tried to fill the gaps that the Uchiha left behind with their absence.

Which was perhaps the only reason why I got away with it.

A hole in security was created for Itachi to escape. I just happened to use that security flaw to kill Sasuke. Had I chosen any other night, I would have failed. Sometimes despite all the hours spent planing and honing your skills, it was only luck that determines if you win or lose. In the end, it all came down to luck and timing.

And that night luck was with me.

They did not bother sending any ninjas to guard Sasuke, why would they? They all knew that the '_threat_' Itachi did not want to harm him, so he was safe. And with the Village's defenses so dangerously thin as it was, with the police force completely decimated, they could ill afford to spare even a single man to guard someone who they knew was in no danger.

They were just as shocked as everyone else when they woke up the next morning only to find he was missing.

They hadn't realised until almost half a day later. The nurses noticed he was missing reported it in, but they did not panic, believing that he had hidden himself somewhere nearby to grieve, needing time alone to get over the shock of losing his entire family. It was only after the staff, and then some guards they called in to help, failed to find him did they begin to realise something was wrong.

They never did end up finding out what happened to him.

And perhaps, in the end, they were better off for it.

None among them had wanted Sasuke to live, not the Clan Heads, not the Anbu commander, and maybe not even Sarutobi. It was only their promise to Itachi that stayed their hand and saved him from sharing the same fate of the rest of his Clan.

And while they did make an effort to search for him, the simple truth of it was they were happy to have failed, because no one wanted him to be found. He was a loose thread, unfinished business, and a threat to the Village and their families, but because their hands were tied it was a threat they could not take care of.

So when went missing, when they couldn't find him anywhere in the Village, more than one among them felt relief. With him gone, the issue of the Uchiha Clan would final come to a close, and they could say with complete honestly that they had nothing to do with it. So even though the Clans made a show of desperately searching, in secret they celebrated this turn of events.

No matter what was Sasuke's fate, it no longer mattered to them.

If an outsider had killed him, that was fine. It got rid of their unfinished business while leaving their hands entirely clean. If he had committed suicide from grief over the loss of his Clan and the betrayal of his brother, that was even better. If another of the Hidden Villages had managed to take advantage of lowered security to sneak in and kidnap him then that was fine too; Itachi will track them down soon enough and his wrath will fall upon their Village instead of Konoha. And if it was one of their own who took care of Sasuke, well, it wouldn't do to look too deeply into the matter.

So long as they never learned the truth they could tell Itachi with a clear conscious that they had nothing to do with Sasuke's disappearance, and with Itachi's Sharingan – whose skill with it was so prodigious that it was said to be able to see through all lies – he could take one look at their faces and know they spoke only the truth. They honestly didn't know what happened to him, and thus they could not be held accountable for Sasuke's fate.

Somehow, I doubt Itachi saw it that way.

Though I desperately wanted to know what was Itachi's response to his brother's disappearance my father didn't bring up, and I didn't dare ask. No matter how much time has passed, I didn't want to show the slightest bit of interest in Sasuke. These Shinobi have shown themselves to be far more conniving than I ever gave them credit for; it wasn't impossible that they might suspect me and simply did not show it, so it's best not to take the chance just to satisfy my curiosity.

But there was more to the tale of the Uchiha.

For among the Clan Leaders, the Anbu commander and the Hokage, there was one more man involved in their massacre.

He was there during every meeting, standing by the Hokage's side like an obedient lapdog, or perhaps a shadow would been more appropriate. Yes, a Kage's shadow, that was best the best way to describe him.

He never said a word during those meeting, never contributed anything, just stood by his master's side, observing silently, judging with his single watchful eye.

He was an unassuming man, slight and frail. At first glance he would have appeared harmless, a crippled old man well past his time. With a lame leg, one working arm and but a single eye, what threat did he pose to a room full of experienced killers?

No a single person in the room was fooled. They knew who he was.

Even Gods cast shadows.

Sarutobi Hiruzen, the Third Hokage, the Professor, the Monkey Summoner, he was all of these things and more. But during his prime, when he was in the peak of his power he was known by one other name, one that was both a praise and a warning. To the people of Konoha, Sarutobi was a beloved father figure, adored and revered, but to the rest of the Shinobi world, he was a monster. He was hailed as the 'God of Shinobi', a title he earned because in a world full of killers, he was unrivaled at his skill in killing.

A God among killers.

And like every man had a shadow, so too did God.

That was title given to the man who forever stood by God's side. _KamiKage -_ 'God's Shadow'.

The darkness born from God.

Utterly loyal, absolutely obedient, the Shadow only moved to fulfill God's will. In the entire Village there was not a man more obedient to the Hokage, or more trusted by him. To make sure God's hand remained clean, he, the shadow, will go where God must not tread, do what only devils dare do.

Assassination.

Child soldiers.

Genocide.

Betrayal.

There was nothing he would not do. No sin too cruel, no crime too reprehensible for him. Like a fanatic fighting in the name of his God, all was justified in his eyes.

In the room full of killers, he was perhaps the most blood-soaked of them all, and only the Hokage had nothing to fear from him. To the rest of the Elemental Nations, he was a bogyman.

The shadow had a name.

They call him Danzo.

And now he has come for me.

* * *

_***Chapter End***_

**Author's Notes:** Next chapter coming up soon. Hope you enjoyed it.


	11. Chapter 11: They Call Him Danzo (Part 2)

**Author's Notes:**

_It's a little late, but Merry Christmas everyone (Or whatever holidays you may have celebrated), and here it is, the rest of the chapter._

_Since it was already two days later than planned, I had spent the last 6 consecutive hours finishing the chapter to get this out today. So I'm sorry if there might be a little more error ridden than usual, I'll try and fix that up as soon as I can (I'm a little sleep deprived)._

_The chapter covers the entire Danzo encounter, so don't worry, no cliffhangers I promise. And I had a huge explanation for how genjutsu works in this world planned for this chapter (as a lot of you asked for it), but I realised it would destroy the flow of the scene, and there would be a perfect scene two chapter on where it can fit so I delayed it till then._

_That's all for now. Let the show begin._

* * *

_They Call Him Danzo (Part 2)_

For a long second I found myself gaping dumbly into the face the bogyman come to life, unable to bring myself to believe what my eyes were telling me, before my sense of self-preservation kicked.

Quickly shaking off my shock, I immediately reached up to my forehead protector and pulled it down over my eyes, blocking the line of sight between us and plunging me into darkness, before activating my Byakugan.

The darkness around me dropped like a curtain, and in its place came a world beyond the spectrum of light. Distance and direction no longer held any meaning to me, as my eyes allowed me to simultaneously see in every direction and everything around me. And in this world that only those born into my Clan would ever witness, I focused my sight onto my body.

Immediately I took note of the traces of foreign Chakra in my system, clinging to the veins of my network like sludge in a sewer. The Chakra was completely inert, no doubt the remaining traces of the genjutsu I had been caught under, but unwilling to take any chances I immediately disrupted the flow of my Chakra before flushing my system, ridding myself of the foreign influence.

Still not satisfied I thoroughly scanned both my system for any further traces of foreign Chakra, looking over every inch as quickly as I could manage while giving special attention to my brain. And as far as I could tell, I was clean. I couldn't find any traces no matter how hard I looked, but that failed to bring me any sense of relief as I knew just because I couldn't see any didn't mean there weren't anything there.

It was only for a brief second, no more than a heartbeat, but just before I managed to pull down my forehead protector and over my eyes, I had glanced straight into Danzo's eyes. Into both his natural eye and the one he had beneath the bandages – Shisui's eye.

I didn't know how Shisui's Mangekyou worked; I didn't even know how powerful its effects were. Even in the Hyuuga Clan Library information on the Mangekyou Sharingan was scarce, usually more myth and speculation than fact. The Uchiha guarded the secrets of their eyes just as viciously as my Clan did, and the Mangekyou Sharingan was so rare that it wouldn't have surprised me if the Uchiha themselves barely knew anything about it. Not to mention, Shisui's Mangekyou were peculiar enough compared to normal Mangekyou that I probably couldn't rely on any information I found anyway.

In the show it was said that his eyes were so powerful that it could force its targets to willingly obey any command, manipulate them so thoroughly that it convinced them that they were acting on their own free will, never realizing that they were only puppets. But the knowledge from the show has already been proven to be unreliable at best and outright fabrications at worse, so I didn't know how much stock I could place on it.

Without having any idea on the limitations of Shisui's Mangekyou, I couldn't tell if I was free from Danzo's influence or if I was already trapped under its power and have become another one of Danzo's unwitting puppets. If the powers of Shisui's Mangekyou had any truth in it then it wasn't impossible for him to hide its effects from the Byakugan; what if he had used it to command me not to notice? I could be looking straight into the foreign Chakra in my body but my mind would ignore it because of its power.

There was no way for me to know. Not on my own. Maybe when I got back home I could ask my father to scan me thoroughly for any signs foreign influence, but until then I can no way of knowing for sure if my will was my own or someone else's.

And with that unpleasant thought, I stopped scanning myself and turned my attention to the man sitting before me. Danzo, possibly one of the most dangerous men on the entire planet, hadn't budged the entire time I was examining myself and had in fact been waiting patiently for me to finish, his face so stoic that I couldn't begin to guess what he was thinking.

Unlike his unremarkable physical appearance, the picture that Danzo painted under the sight of my Byakugan was so bizarre that it took me a second to even realise I was looking at a human being. Whatever Danzo had done to himself, he was without a doubt the oddest looking person I had ever seen.

His entire body was a mismatch of human and plant cells, like a patchwork doll made from two separate dolls. I couldn't even say for sure if he could even still be considered a mammal anymore or if he should be classified as a plant. It was especially obvious in his right arm, which was almost completely deprived of human cells, but the rest of his body was barely any better.

The strangest part was I had no idea how to explain how he was even alive. He was made up of so many foreign cells that is should have been impossible for his body to function. That the majority of said foreign cells were _plant_ cells – something that should have been completely incompatible with a human's – made it only worse. His organs - which had root-like veins growing through them - shouldn't have been able to operate in the state they were in and should have shut down ages ago, leaving him to die, but, going against ever scientific law I knew of, his organs managed to function. More than just function, they were brimming with life. Despite his age and the many scars that littered his body, Danzo had vitality of a person in the prime of his life.

Tearing my eyes to away from the fascinating phenomenon that was his body, I forced myself to scan the rest of him; more specifically I turned my focus towards his skull to examine his eyes.

Dismissing his ordinary left eye completely after a quick glance, which was perhaps the only ordinary organ in his entire body, I begun studying the Mangekyou Sharingan held in his right eye socket-

_huh?_

_Where? Where the hell was it?_

Beneath the bandages, Danzo's right socket sat empty. Just a hole in his skull. Shisui's Mangekyou wasn't there. Quickly I began scanning the rest of his body, looking over every square inch of him for any signs of the missing Mangekyou but I couldn't find it. It wasn't even on the arm that had been infused with Hashirama's cells, the eye wasn't there. I couldn't find Shisui's Mangekyou anywhere. Hell, I couldn't find a Sharingan _period, _neither Shisui's or the ten others he was supposed to have embedded into his arm.

What in Nine Hells was going on?

"Are you done?" Danzo asked, snapping me out of my thoughts and reminding of the bigger issue on hand.

When I had first laid eyes on Danzo, I felt myself overcome by a blind instinctive – if reasonable – terror. But in intervening seconds since, I had managed to reign in my emotions as reason began to take hold of my mind, blunting most of the initial burst panic I felt.

I was safe, I wasn't in any danger. Danzo was not here to kill me, he couldn't be. If he had wanted me dead then I would have already be dead. He would have just had it over and done with by now rather than going through all the trouble of setting this charade up.

Then, of course, there was the matter of just who I was.

I wasn't some nameless orphan off the street that he could abduct and no one would notice. I was Hyuuga Hikaru, the first born son to Hyuuga Hiashi and the Heir to the Hyuuga Clan, one of the three remaining Noble Clans of Konoha. I was this generation's up and coming prodigy, the best friend to the Kyuubi's Jinchuuriki, a member of the newly formed team 7 and a student to Hatake Kakashi. I was practically standing in the middle of a spotlight; there was simply no way you could make me disappear, not without getting half the village after you. Which meant that I was safe, not even Danzo could touch me.

At least, that's what I chose to believe.

The pounding of heart began to ease a little with that thought, slowing until it approached something that I could at least pretend was normal. Without taking my protector off my eyes, I full faced Danzo and bowed in my seat towards the man, "Yes, Danzo-sama."

Danzo watched me for a time, his scarred face set in its usual grim frown, thoughts indecipherable, before he gave a curt nod. He turned to look toward the rest of the restaurant occupants, where the over one hundred Root members continued to watch me with wide unblinking eyes. The entire time not a single one of them had moved, they didn't so much as twitch, didn't even blink - I knew, I had been watching.

Danzo calmly raised his working hand and flicked his fingers once, and the silent restaurant burst to life again.

It was like watching someone hitting the play button after pausing a film. The waiters went on with their business, delivering meals or jolting down new orders, while the customers turned back to each other and began picking up threads of conversation, continuing where they had left off as if they hadn't been interrupted at all. Two kids, who couldn't have been older than eight or nine at most, screeched with laughter as they chased one another around the restaurant, while on the stage the _koto_ player returned to her instrument, her fingers gracefully flowing over the strings as they pick up a tune – one thankfully free of Chakra this time.

Not that it would have made a difference if she had. While I couldn't stop the foreign Chakra from invading my system, most genjutsu relied heavily on the target _not knowing_ they were caught up in an illusion for it to work. And with my eyes now fully open, that was no longer possible. With my Byakugan active I can see Chakra, and if any tried to invade my system I can flush it out immediately. Nothing short of an S-Rank genjutsu like the Kotoamatsukami could affect me now, and with my eyes covered even that was no longer possible.

Presuming of course, I wasn't already trapped under the effects of Kotoamatsukami.

A passing server placed a bowl of food on the counter in front of Danzo and me before she immediately headed off to server another pair of customers – or rather the Root ninjas pretending to be customers.

"Eat up." Danzo nodded towards the meal, "My personal chef's work. I had the entire staff replaced with my own men so no one would disturb us for the night."

Well, at least that explained why the food tasted so good tonight.

Despite the invitation, Danzo made no move to touch his own food. Rather he kept on watching me, his bandaged face so stoic that I had no idea what he was thinking.

Yeah, as if I could possible enjoy eating anything with him watching me.

"With all due respect Danzo-sama," I ventured cautiously, not sure if he'd be offended, "but why are you here?"

Danzo said nothing and just continued to watch me, showing no signs that he had even heard me speak. The silence between us began to stretch, growing more strained with every passing second, and just when I was about to force myself to speak up again, Danzo moved. Turning away from me to face the counter, he picked up a pair of chopstick with a single hand and began to methodically eat from his meal.

After watching him eat for a few awkward seconds, I too turned back to my meal and forced myself to do the same. Despite having found it delicious only a few seconds earlier, I wasn't able to so much taste my food as I chewed, ever mouthful a challenge to swallow as I had to force food down my painfully dry throat.

It was an awkward affair, one that I thought would last until we both had finished our meals, but to my immense relief it was barely a minute later when he spoke. The clinking of plates, the laughter and chatter of the occupants filled the air with a steady din, so when he finally broke his silence, I had almost missed what he had said.

"Were you aware," Danzo asked lightly, "that I was supposed to have trained you?"

Barely managing to keep myself from slipping off my stool at that bit of news, I whipped my head around to stare at the man. _What?_ I had never heard anything about that. I didn't even know Danzo took on students for God's sake.

My throat constructing at the thought of being under the thumb of this monster, I had even further trouble forcing down the mouthful of food that I had been chewing. After a brief struggle, I managed to swallow and asked, "Is...is that normal? For you to take on students, I mean."

"From time to time." Danzo admitted, still maintaining his methodical eating pace, "Usually the people I train are far older, hand-picked from the newest crop of Anbu, but from time to time when a child shows a remarkable amount of talent I get handed a student as young as yourself and take over their training. Many people consider it an honour."

I'm sure they do, you sociopath.

"I was rather surprised when your father rejected my offer." Though his expression didn't so much as shift, I got the feeling that Danzo didn't quite know what to think of that.

Oh Hiashi, you beautiful son of a bitch. When I get home I'm so going to hug the stuffing out of you.

"It is odd, to see a man change so thoroughly." Danzo admitted pensively, "A decade earlier he would have gladly handed you over to me. He was much like Fugaku in that regards, he wanted a powerful heir so badly that it blinded him to everything else. It is almost amusing how two men so similar in nature could hate each other so thoroughly." He scoffed, "People are always blinded to their own flaws."

Danzo shook his head before carrying on. "When you began to prove yourself as a prodigy, everyone had been sure Hiashi would have leapt at the opportunity for me to take over your training, just as I had done with Fugaku's boy."

"Wait." I interrupted. Fugaku had only two children, one was Sasuke and the other was - "You trained Itachi?"

"Yes. I had." A fond smile grew on Danzo's face, looking so out of place in his harsh features. He set down his chopsticks to raise a hand up to his empty eye socket, fingers slowly caressing the bandage there. "Uchiha Itachi, my greatest creation." He said, sounding oddly proud for some reason.

It was that odd ting of pride in his voice that, along with the way he reached for his missing eye at Itachi's name, gave me the final piece of the puzzle I needed to put everything together.

Oh.

_Oh!_

_ Holy- _so that's what happened.

I had always wondered what Itachi did when he heard of Sasuke's disappearance, there was no way he would have just sat back and left the matter alone. No, Itachi loved his brother far too much to take his disappearance sitting down. From what little I knew of him, he would have came storming back to the Leaf to demand answers, and I doubt he would have done it peacefully either. Homicidal would have probably been a better word for it.

And yet, I haven't heard a single thing about it. There been no swaths of destruction attributed to him, no murders to his name anywhere in the Land of Fire. As far I knew Itachi hasn't been seen in the Village since the massacre. So I had no idea how he had reacted to the news and had no way of ever knowing.

Until now. Because one look at Danzo's face gave me all the answers I need.

Itachi fucking mutilated Danzo. _Holy Shit!_

I couldn't imagine the rage Itachi must have felt when he corner Danzo and demanded answers, only to discover he didn't have any. And with his Sharingan, he would have been able to see through any lie, so he must have known Danzo was innocent, and yet he still ripped Shisui's eye straight out of his skull anyway.

I wonder what it must have felt to see so many of his dead relative's eyes – relatives that he himself had murdered – looking up at him through Danzo's arm. That would have driven anyone mad and I'm honestly surprised that Danzo managed to survive the encounter.

Did Itachi do it for revenge, or did he still carry some vain hope that Danzo was lying and tried to force some answers out of him? Did he rip one eye after the other from Danzo, starting with the ones in his arms and ending with one in his skull, hoping he would spill the beans on his brother's whereabouts? Or did he do it as a form of punishment for his failure to protect his brother?

Who can say? I didn't know, and I doubted I ever would. But there is one thing I can say for certain.

_Itachi, you freaking rock!_

It was all I could do not break out in hysterical laughter as I felt as if a giant burden had been lifted off my shoulders. Without Shisui's Mangekyou, Danzo had no way to influence my mind. I wasn't safe, not yet, not when I was trapped in a building alone with Danzo and a hundred Root operatives who were probably all too willing to kill me should he give the command, but at the very least I knew that no matter what happened tonight, my thoughts were my own.

"When I first approached Itachi he had been even younger than you are now. He had already made Chunin at the time, and it was clear to everyone that it wouldn't be long before he reached Jonin as well, but even so, I was reluctant to start his training. Prodigy or not, young minds are different from a grown one. Children are more than just tiny adults. Training meant to harden and tempter an adult's mind could just as easily cause a child's to snap, ruining him forever. It was for that reason why I rarely bothered with children that young, they were too hard to train without breaking, but I had my orders. On the command of the Hokage, along with Fugaku's approval, I was to approach Itachi and have him trained."

Well, that answers one mystery. I always had bugged me how Danzo had managed to get his claws on Itachi. Like me, Itachi was a Clan Heir and a prodigy to boot; it shouldn't have been possible for Danzo to get close enough to Itachi for him to exert his influence on the boy without his Clan noticing. But if Fugaku had sent him to get trained by Danzo – and possible act as a double agent – then things began to make sense.

"But despite my misgivings Itachi proved me wrong. Not only had he passed through the training I usually reserved for the best of Anbu operatives, he excelled. Both in ability and mindset, he outclassed those who were a full decade his senior by leaps and bounds. Over the many years I had trained countless of shinobi, but there had never been one that came closer to fitting my ideal image of a perfect shinobi than Itachi had. Sacrificing, loyal, humble, he was everything a ninja should be and more. It was then, when I had truly began to comprehend the full extent of talent that I had been given to mold, that I proposed a plan to Hiruzen. While he had been caught off guard by my proposal at first it didn't take him long to come around to it, not after he had been given the opportunity to get to know Itachi and understand what kind of a person he was. And so it was decided, we were going to make Uchiha Itachi the next Hokage."

_….What!?_

After all the shocks I had suffered through over the last few minutes, you'd think to I'd be at least somewhat used to it by now, or if not, then at the very least numb to it all. But no, this latest revelation hit me just as hard as the rest had and I felt my thoughts screeching to halt as my mind tried to cope with what I had just heard.

"I take it your father has already informed you about the truth behind the Uchiha." Danzo asked causing me to nod numbly in response, still dazed due to the latest in the series of shocks. "If there had ever been a bigger group of fools than that Clan then I had yet to have the displeasure of meeting them. They were paranoid group, obsessively so. They saw plots and schemes everywhere, stared at every shifting shadow with suspicion and found insults in every innocuous gesture. They had somehow managed to get it into their foolhardy minds that the entire Village was out to get them. They had honestly believed that all of us, from the lowly street sweeper all the way up the Hokage, were all conspiring behind the scenes together to bring them down.

"It was utter nonsense naturally, but they were thoroughly convinced and nothing we did or said could convince them otherwise. Any attempt at reconciliation from our part was just met with suspicion, as if it was some kind of convoluted attempt to trap them, and as a result every year the Uchiha continued to grow more isolated from the rest of the Village. There is nothing quite as dangerous as a man who has convinced himself that he is trapped and cornered, an entire clan was even worse. We were just being to grasp how dire the situation had become and, with no obvious fix in sight, we started to fear the worse. But Itachi, he changed everything.

"It was the perfect solution. By making him Hokage, we would be able to bring the Uchiha back into the Village, repairing the rift that sprung up between us and proving once and for all that we valued their Clan. For his skills and prowess, Itachi was adored and respected by both the villagers, while the ninjas that had fought beside him loved him for his dedicated and peaceful nature. The boy certainly had enough talent for the position, more than enough. Genjutsu, taijutsu, ninjutsu, he was skilled in them all. Not since Hiruzen himself was a child had I seen so much potential in one so young. Not even the Sannin could have matched him at his age.

"Above all else, the boy was loyal. Not to his Clan or any single individual, but to the Village as a whole. The boy loved the Leaf, what it stood for and all that lived within its walls, so much so that he had been willing to put down his entire Clan if it meant to protect the Village from harm. Hiruzen calls it the will of fire, I didn't think so but maybe he was right, maybe the boy did have the will of fire in him, but whatever you choose to call it we both knew that we had nothing to fear from the boy abusing his position. Itachi would have made a fine Hokage.

"It really was the perfect solution, one that would have solved all our problems in one fell swoop. And it was working too. Simply by mentioning that we were grooming Itachi for the position of the Fifth Hokage was enough to placate the Uchiha and help restore their relationship with the Village to better than it had been in decades. Yes, making Itachi Hokage was the correct choice. It was the perfect solution. Absolutely perfect."

Danzo had drifted into silenced, staring blankly into open space as he was lost in his own thoughts, thinking about the past.

Then he _moved_.

Faster than I had seen anyone move, Danzo raised his clenched fist and brought it smashing down into the wooden counter, causing the tableware sitting on it to jump as fractures ran through its surface.

"Then," Danzo spoke calmly, as if hadn't just almost smashed the counter in two, "we found out the boy was dying, and everything went to shit."

Neither his voice nor expression betrayed the torrent of rage that I knew he was feeling, he masked it perfectly, it was only by watching his Chakra fluctuate did I knew he felt anything but indifference as he thought about Itachi's fate.

"An autoimmune disease centered primarily on the lungs, one with no known cure. Not even Chakra could fix it, it only ended up aggravating the symptoms; by definition it was an illness in which the body destroyed itself, so strengthening his body only made the symptoms worse. As if that hadn't been bad enough, this particular brand of the disease responded especially violently to Chakra. The medics concluded that through proper medication Itachi may yet be able to live a long life so long as he limited his use of Chakra, if he doesn't, then it was unlikely he'd live to see the end of his second decade. In other words, for Itachi to live he must never use Chakra again, his career as a shinobi was as good as over end.

"Needless to say that all plans of making Itachi Hokage was scraped. We couldn't afford to have a dying Hokage, not after losing the Fourth so young. The Uchiha of course were predictably furious when they received the news. That their Heir and hope for the future was dying was bad enough, but once we informed them that Itachi would no longer be considered as Hiruzen' successor the relationship with the Uchiha reverted back to how it had been before. No, if anything the situation was even worse off, they seemed to take the news rather personally and, illogically, seemed to blame us for it.

"And in the end the situation accumulated into the incident known as the Uchiha Massacre, and what a mess that turned out to be. There had been no winners on either side. Konoha ended up losing an entire bloodline, along with more than a hundred talented ninjas, over the course of a single night, all due to the stubborn pride and paranoia of a single Clan. I too was rather vexed with the situation at first as I thought of all the countless of hours I spent training on what had ended up proving to be an unsound investment, of all the years I wasted training a dying man. But then, Itachi manged to prove me wrong. Even when he was dying, Itachi found a way to serve his Village. Till the end, he was the perfect ninja."

Danzo finally drifted off into silence, hand still held over his empty eye, while around us the crowds of disguised Root played their roles perfectly, to the point that I had unconsciously began to tune them out despite knowing their true nature and the threat they posed.

When the silence began to stretch and it was starting to look like Danzo wouldn't speak again, I decided to speak up. "Forgive Danzo-sama," I said, causing the man to turn his head to me, "but why are you telling me all of this?"

"From what little I've heard about you," I continued when he kept on staring at me, a rather uncomfortable experience, "you are not the type to give information away freely, not without a reason. And I find it unlikely that you have went through all the trouble of ambushing me here, alone, with a crowd to mask our meeting," I waved an arm at the crowded restaurant filled with disguised Root agents, "just to tell me about the possibility of Itachi becoming Hokage or how if things had turned out differently, you might have become my instructor. You do not strike me as the type to reminisce over what might have been Danzo-sama, so please forgive my rudeness but I must ask you again, why are you here?"

Danzo stared down at with me with his single eyes, his gaze almost like a physical weight. I could not read the man, not even with my Byakugan fully open and focused on him I had no idea what he was thinking. With the exception of that torrent of rage he felt at the mention of Itachi's disease, I might as well have been staring at a rock for all the emotions I sensed coming for him.

"Were you aware," he asked, breaking his silence, "that the Academy keeps a detailed psychiatric report on all prospective Genin?"

"Yes sir, I am aware." I nodded.

They psych profiling had less to with mental health of the students and more to do with determining the role they were suited for. No one wanted to have a deranged ninja on their hands but they also didn't want to have to waste resources training someone only to find up they didn't have the stomach for the job.

Students with too much empathy are usual sent to the Medical Crops to be trained in the healing arts or even to the counter-intelligence division, while those with too little are sent to the Torture and Integration division. It was very rare that anyone would be exempted from the Academy due to results from their physic profile however, and for good reason. No matter how potential horrible of a human being the child could grow up to become, they would always be able to find a use for them. After all, the worst humans during peace tended to make the best soldiers in war.

"Then I'm sure you must know there is a psychiatric report on yourself. But are you aware on what it says?" Danzo asked, causing me to shake my head in response. "You should give it a look if you ever have the opportunity to do so; it makes for quite an interesting read. As it happened, it was what was written in your psychological profile as much as it was your talent which brought my attention to you, maybe even more so."

_….What the hell did my psych report fucking say!?_

As if reading my mind, Danzo pulled out a sheet of paper from his robe and offered it to me. Taking the sheet, I quickly began to scan through the page, recognising Iruka's handwriting. Skipping over the beginning, which held nothing more than background information, I dove straight into the heart of the report.

_In his time under my care, Hyuuga Hikaru has often exhibited behavior that could easily be mistaken as psychopathic. Though he has proven himself capable of interacting and socializing with __fellow __his classmates as well as anyone else his age could – perhaps even more so as he proven himself capable of becoming quite charming when he wants to– he seems incapable of genuinely caring for any of them, baring one notable exception._

_ Highly intelligent and pragmatic, Hikaru uses his intellect as a tool to achieve his goal and show little compassion to anyone who happened to be in the way. While he has rarely demonstrated it, he has on occasion shown a wiliness to manipulate his classmates if it would grant him an advantage, by using either his wit, charm or their current relationship to make it happen. And as far as I am able to observe, he does not feel any remorse or guilt for doing so, showing a worrisome amount of callous manipulation for one so young. _

_ He also appears to hold little regard to the rules despite strictly following them. Whenever he finds an inconvenient rule he, instead of outright breaking it like most children his age would do, finds a way to work around it, often through the use of loopholes or by using connections granted to him through his Clan._

_ This leads directly to my next point. In addition to being self-confident, Hikaru has a grandiose sense of self – a belief that he is always in the right – which his high intelligence only serves to feed. When tested with a moral dilemma through a hypothetical situation – like we do with every student in the Academy – Hikaru has proven capable of justifying almost any action to himself through the use of logical reasoning, and was capable of convincing those around him to his point of view. There was rarely a point where Hikaru had ever stopped to consider whether or not he had a right to take such an action, he only saw things in cost and gains._

_ Another worrisome trait is his distinct lack of general empathy._

_During sparring session, children often demonstrate signs of reluctance when they are paired up against fellow classmates or friends, either due to fear of hurting them or the possibility of damaging their friendship. This issue, in addition to preventing students from reaping the most benefits from training, often causes them to develop bad habits. It is for that reason that we extensively train them to put aside their emotions during a fight during their early years in the Academy._

_This was not the case with Hikaru._

_Since his arrival Hikaru has never demonstrated any such hesitation during any of his fights. While careful not harm his opponent any more than needed to – thankfully Hikaru has never shown any signs of sadism – Hikaru demonstrate an indifference that borders on callousness when it comes to inflicting the necessary pain he needs to win during these spars. He shows no hesitation in striking at a person he had just been chatting with, no remorse for breaking an opponent's nose who he had been trading jokes with the very same morning._

_ But neither does he take any pleasure in them._

_Again, I would like to reiterate that though he shows no sense of guilt at inflicting in necessary pain that is needed to win a match, he also does not appear to take any pleasure it. Neither in the pain or in the victory itself. It is almost as if he was indifferent to the entire experience, perhaps even detached. To him, those fights held no other meaning to them outside of what lessons could be learned for them; Victory and defeat mean nothing to him other than an indication to his level of skill and an assessment of his weaknesses._

_I had become increasingly convinced over my years of associating with him that is how Hikaru sees everyone around himself, including myself. Not as individuals or people, but as means to an end, our only true value to hims is on how useful we are. I sincerely believe that should I drop dead one morning, the only thing Hikaru would feel beside surprise at my unexpected demise would be irritation at having to adapt to a new teacher. It is unlikely he would feel any real grief._

_His distinct lack of empathy, combined with the other behavior patterns mentioned above all points that Hikaru exhibits many of the classic traits associated with that of a psychopath. In short, this had led me to believe I am dealing with a __very __mentally disturbed child._

...Well, fuck you too Iruka!

_Yet despite demonstrating several traits that could easily be described as psychopathic, I am reluctant to call him one. One needs only to see __Hikaru__ interact with one Uzumaki Naruto to understand why._

_ To say he is different would not be doing it justice. The person he becomes when he is with her is such a stark contrast to that boy __that__ I see sitting in my classroom that I __must __confess, I find myself having trouble reconciling the two as the same person. Where one is apathetic the other is caring, where one is indifferent the other demonstrate a fierce almost fanatic loyalty._

_ He dotes on __Naruto__ constantly, listens to many of her childish worries despite proving to __be smart enough__ to find such things beneath him __intellectually __and demonstrates a fierce over-protectiveness when it comes to her __well-being.__ It is thanks to him that she has been able to assimilate with the rest of the classmate as well as she had despite being the Kyuubi's host. I still recall how in the early days of the Academy, in stark contrast to his usual cold methodical approach to a problem, Hikaru would without the slightest hint of hesitation punch another child's face in for insulting her – an event that was repeated several times. An unusually knee-jerk and open reaction to someone who __usual so emotionally detached from the world around him__._

_ It was as if every emotion he failed to show anyone else in class, he gave to her._

_ It for these reason that I had recommended that the Hokage permit the continued association between the two. Despite the Hokage's understandable concerns that Hikaru's relationship with Naruto is only a thinly veiled __ploy__ from the Hyuuga to gain influence over the Kyuubi, I have long concluded that is not the case. Hikaru is associating with Naruto out of his own free will, his interaction with her is too genuine for __it to be otherwise__._

_ Then there is his younger sister, Hyuuga Hanabi, and his cousin, Hyuuga Neji._

_ By all reports he appears to be highly __attached__ to his younger __sibling__ and, while perhaps not the same extent, to Neji as well. While I am not familiar enough with them to give a proper assessment on their relationship – as I had never __had __the pleasure of instructing either Hanabi or Neji – I have personally witnessed him interacting with the two during their __lunch __breaks or in the middle of __the __corridor __between periods__, and I confess it is a relief to see him act so _human _to someone outside of Naruto. It proves that despite my earlier concerns, Hikaru is_ _in fact capable of caring for others._

_ This is far from the typical profile of a psychopath and does not fit within the establish parameters of one._

_ It for the above stated reasons that I have concluded that rather than being unable to care, Hikaru has a frightening ability to shut down his emotions at will. Either disregarding them or even turning them off and on entirely as easily as you or I would flip a switch. He can emotionally distance himself from those around him while still permitting himself to care for a chosen few._

_ If true it would explain the dichotomy he has demonstrated; sympathetic in regards to some while cold-blooded dismissal when it comes to others._

_ This is of course not __typical__ behavior for anyone, let alone a child, and I would have normally attributed the source of this behavior due to a mental __trauma due to a __traumatic experience. But looking through his history I have failed to discover any evidence to support this theory, as he appeared to have a relatively peaceful life. The closest event that I could find was during the Kumo Incident when one of the ambassador tried to kidnap him as a child, but all reports agree that the ambassador was stopped long before he could reach him and that Hikaru was unaware of the attempt until long after it was over._

_In conclusion, Hikaru is not a psychopathic though he has shown himself capable of behaving like one due to his frightening ability of shutting his empathy off when needed. This skill would prove to be highly useful in an assassin, as unlike many of his peers __Hikaru__ is unlikely to suffer from __any__ guilt or mental trauma as a result of killing someone outside of combat. He is most likely able to perform such tasks with little or no emotional trouble._

_ It is for the above __stated__ reasons that I recommend Hikaru be considered as a candidate as a Hunter-Nin. With his bloodline, along his natural ability to distance himself emotionally from others, Hikaru would have __no __difficulty__ tracking and __bringing__ down a fellow ninja of the leaf should they turn traitor. And while he would also be unlike to care for any civilian causalities or innocent bystanders if it meant the success of the mission, he is also pragmatic enough not to kill indiscriminately and would assess the pros and cons of a situation before committing to any action._

_ Recommendation:_

_ Wet-works, Hunter-Nin, Intelligence and Counter-intelligence unit._

By the time I reached the end of the report and put it down, I couldn't figure out whether to be offended or flattered by what I had read, and before I could come to a decision Danzo began to speak again.

"Your performance in Kakashi's test was especially telling. Put it simply, you performed magnificently." Despite the praise, Danzo's voice sounded bland as always. "When you found yourself facing a vastly superior opponent, you retreated. You didn't foolishly try to fight him yourself and fled immediately upon fulfilling your objective of acquiring bait, before leading him into an ambush. And when that failed, you used every dirty trick you could think of – no matter how potentially lethal – uncaring for any sense of fair-play. It didn't matter how you did it, it didn't even matter if it was you or your teammates who delivered the winning blow, just that one of you got your hands on that bell, all that mattered was victory. Thus you managed to turn a hopeless situation into one where victory was possible.

"And perhaps even more impressive was your seamlessly teamwork. At that point you in time you had only been a team for under twenty-four hours, yet you managed to worked together as if you had been doing it for years. While that might have been partially explained away by your experience with handling Uzumaki, that was not case with the young Nara, and a team's dynamics can be greatly altered by the addition of a single new member. But under your leadership the three of you managed to co-ordinate together far better than I would have believed possible from a newly formed Genin team."

"Pragmatic, intelligent, ruthless and most importantly, _efficient_." Danzo stressed the word. "Yes, I do not believe I could find a more ideal candidate even if I had another decade to look."

I felt dread fill my spine at the implication. "Candidate?" I parroted, not sure why I felt such fear from a single word only certain that it meant nothing good for me. I tried to figure out what he was implying by it was no good. My thoughts felt muddled, slow and unclear while my head was all but spinning from being overloaded with all the shock and information I was forced to process over the last few minutes. Underneath my forehead protector I shut by eyes and took a deep steadying breath before speaking. "Danzo-sama, please just tell me what you want from me."

"Very well, I will be frank then." Danzo said, agreeing to my request. "We are running out of time, both Hiruzen and I. Neither of us ever expected to live for so long, or for him to still remain as the Hokage at his age. And it cannot last. Already his years is beginning to show. While his mind maybe as sharp as ever, his body is not and it is beginning to fail him. He grows weary faster with each passing year, and his skill in combat have blunted. Another few years, a decade at most, and he would no longer be fit to lead the Leaf. Which is why we have already begun making preparations for when that day comes."

It was like having a bucket of ice cold water poured down my spine as I understood where the conversation was going, and I jolted up right in my seat.

_Wait-wait-wait-wait! Don't tell me-_

"…you want to make me Hokage?" I asked, incredulity straining my voice.

These guys, just like they had planned with Itachi, they were planning to do the same with me.

'_Were they freaking insane!?__'_I silently roared in my mind. '_What part of me looks like Hokage material? Did hey have even the slightest clue on what a dangerously stupid idea this was? I'd be a horrible Hokage and I sure as fuck didn't want be one.__'_

Thankfully Danzo was quick to put that fear to rest.

"No." He said, and I got the impression that had I been dealing with anyone else he would have laughed, but the only reaction I received from Danzo was a microscopic lifting of his lips, "You are not suited to become Hokage."

Danzo turned his seat to look out the window set in the far wall, the one that offered a glimpse of the Hokage Monument. "A Hokage is more than just strength, more than a skilled killer with a cunning mind. A Hokage must be more, strong in a way that the word 'strong' simply cannot properly convey. If the Village is like the leaves of a tree, bathing in the sunlight, then the Hokage is the fire – the sun that shines down that light. Irrelevant of whatever power they possess, they manage to bring about miracles that no one else could though the force of their character alone. And people like us, who hide behind masks and lies, cannot hope to replace them."

Danzo kept staring through the window for a moment longer, "We already have three potential Hokage candidates to choose from, one of them even happens to be a member of your generation, but you are not among them." He said before turning back to look at me. "And let us face facts, someone as cold hearted as you would make a terrible Hokage."

_I cannot begin to tell how little that means to me when coming from you._

I however, had more than enough wits about me to realise what a bad idea it would be to express that thought, and instead said, "So if you don't want me to become Hokage then what _do _you want?"

"Just because you lack the qualifications to become a Hokage does not mean I do not have another role for you to fulfill. The Hokage cannot be everywhere nor do everything. Just as the leaves need to be bathed in the light, so do the roots need to be tended to. But a fire can not cast a shadow, they can only shine. And it is there in the dark, buried beneath the earth, where the roots that support the tree grow, a place where no light belongs, and only shadows roam. And so the Hokage needs a shadow; to tend to the roots, to go where the light cannot and dirty his hands so the light will remain pure. So no, Hyuuga Hikaru, you are not meant to be Hiruzen's successor, but Hiruzen is not the only growing old."

Wait, he can't mean-

..oh God, please God no. I'm not supposed Sarutobi's successor, I'm-

"Yours." I said, feeling my entire body go numb. "You don't want me to become the Hokage's successor, you want me to be yours."

_They wanted me to become the next Danzo._

This time Danzo did smile, and it was a dark thing.

_Oh no! No-no-no, and Hell no! Over my dead body!_

"But why me?" I asked, stalling for time as my mind raced for a way out of this. "Even if I am qualified, I have no reason to support the Hokage more than anyone else. Less so, you read my psych elevations, I'm an even less suited to becoming your successor than I am the Hokage's. You should understand better than anyone that even should I ever inherit your role, it would be meaningless as I wouldn't have a reason to be loyal to the Hokage."

Normally even hinting that you might not be completely loyal to your Village and its leader would be sacrileges, especially in front of this man, but this was far from normal circumstances.

"Are you quite certain of that?" Danzo asked lightly, "You may find it in yourself to show more loyalty than you give yourself credit for."

Having had more than enough of the cryptic comments and obscure hints, I ignored his latest statement and cut straight to the bone of the conversation.

"My father has already rejected your offer to have me trained." I pointed out. "And without his explicit permission you have no authority to take over my training, not unless you somehow manage to get me to agree." Which I sure as hell wasn't about to do. I was the first to admit that I might have had a few screws loose, but even I wasn't that crazy. "And unless you're here to force me to train under you against both of our wishes-"

Which I didn't think was the case as that seemed to be an especially stupid thing to do. He may have been Danzo but even he couldn't abduct a Clan's Heir without repercussions.

"-then I see no reason for you coming here tonight."

Whatever response I expected from Danzo my denial, he didn't show it. Instead he just watched me calmly with his one eye, as if he had expected nothing else from me, and suddenly I overcome with the sensation of trap closing about all around me.

"Do you think me so crass as to resort to force, or foolish enough to expect to work? What point is there in an unwilling successor? No, if I do not have your loyalty than there would be no point in having you. I have no use in an heir that would betray me or abandon his duty the first time he got. Which is why it is quite fortunate that I managed to get a hold of a far more effective method to securing your loyalty."

"Which is?" I prompted, by body tense as if ready to bolt.

"The truth." He answered, surprising me. "Shinobi are trained to be ever secretive, to use lies like tools and hoard the truth like the priceless treasures that they are. But there are times when you need to spend that treasure to achieve the result you want. And there are instances where you can win over a man's loyalty by doing nothing more than telling him the honest unadulterated truth; such is the case with our current predicament. I believe I have already told you that a candidate from you generation has already been selected. Would you venture to guess who it may be? It shouldn't be too hard, you two are rather close after all."

I frowned, unable to understand what he was implying. "What are you-"

-_We already have three potential Hokage candidates to choose from, one of them even happens to be a member of your generation-_

Like a bucket of water, the truth washed over me.

"Naruto." I answered, knowing I was correct as soon as the name left my lips. "You want Naruto to become the Hokage."

To my horror Danzo only nodded. "That is correct. Uzumaki Naruto is a candidate for the position of the Fifth and Sixth Hokage."

...That's right, I had forgotten.

This wasn't like in the show; Naruto wasn't the dead last anymore. She was the top of her class, a first-class kunoichi and Jinchuuriki to boot. Then there was the other factors; the blood of the Uzumaki, the sole child of the Fourth Hokage, her insane amount of Chakra along with her healing factor – she was all but destined to become one of the most powerful ninjas the Leaf had ever produced.

And there were the more political factors to consider. She would one day become the head of the Uzumaki Clan – something that had little value in the practical sense, but had more than a little sway in the political field when you take her Clan's history into account – and she also had a strong link with Hyuuga Clan, which had become the most powerful Clan in the village since the fall of the Uchiha and Senju. She was close to all of the Hyuuga Clan Head's children, especially his heir, practically adopted by the Clan's matriarch and was all but raised in their compound. This gave her very strong links to Konoha and a reason to be loyal to the Village she called home.

And they had even gave her Kakashi to train – a person who himself was probably one of the three candidates to becoming Hokage. So even in the event that Kakashi became the Fifth instead of her, all it would do was give her a better claim to becoming the Sixth.

All in all, it made her a near perfect candidate.

And like Sarutobi had Danzo, Naruto had me.

Similar to Naruto and me, Hiruzen Sarutobi and Shimura Danzo had once been part of the same team and were the personal students of the Second Hokage, Senju Tobirama. The same Tobirama who had aided his bother Hashirama in founding the Leaf and helped make it prosper even when his brother passed on.

But while Tobirama had been cunning and an excellent Hokage, he was not like Hashirama. He lacked the charisma, the natural charm his brother seemed to exclude that made men flock to him by the thousands, all ready to swear everlasting loyalty. Tobirama could think of plans within plan, outsmart opponents in the political arena just as easily as he could in the battlefield, and invent Jutsu that would even the Uzumaki look on with awe, but despite the Leaf flourishing under his rule even more than it had done under his brother's, he could not make men love him like they had Hashirama.

He had understood that, like the spirit of men, the Will of Fire needed to be fed with more than just wealth or prosperity. It needed Ideals.

It is for this purpose that he had personally trained two students to succeed him rather than just one. One charismatic and beloved, while the other cunning and efficient. He had raised them to be like brothers, to share a relationship similar to the one he held with his own sibling, and trained them to work in union as a single unit.

It was Tobirama who had founded Root long ago; while his brother had been ruled the Leaf as the Hokage, he commanded the Root as its commander. And when the time came for him to pass on, he had given command of the organization he had founded to Danzo, the student who was most similar to him, while he appointed Sarutobi as the Hokage, the student who in many ways had reminded him of his lost brother.

Two successors – one to stand in the light while the other in the shadow.

He had done this hoping to capture the same synergy, the same chemistry that made his bother and him such a dangerous pair, capable of rewriting the history of the Elemental Nations when standing together. Just as two brothers working together had given birth to the Leaf, so too shall two make it flourish.

In that sense he had succeeded – Konoha had grown to the most prosperous Hidden Village in the Elemental Nations. Even after three wars followed by the Kyuubi attack, Konoha had managed to retain its hold as the strongest Hidden Village.

And by the looks of things they planned to do the same again, only this time it will be Naruto and me filling their roles.

"You…" For once I found myself completely speechless, my mind unable to form a single cohesive thought and I was left gawking at the man with what might have been cross of incredulity and reluctant awe.

_How long had they been planning this?_

"Konoha is spread thin." Danzo carried on speaking despite my incoherent state. "We have succeeded in maintaining the illusion of our dominance over the rest if the Hidden Villages, but the truth of the matter is we are hanging on by our finger nails. We had lost far too many good men to the Kyuubi, men we could ill afford to lose after the Third Shinobi War, and we only managed to survive this far by using every single available man, women and even child we had left until we had no one left to spare. Even today, a full decade later, we are still haven't fully recovered to what we had once been. Our supply of experience Jonin is so small that it is a miracle we manage to spare any at all to train the new Genin teams.

"In such a situation do you think we can afford to waste an asset like Hatake Kakashi as a Jonin Instructor?" Danzo asked, his tone making obvious of what he thought of the idea, "At a time when we can barely afford to spare a single man, why would we take our greatest Jonin out of active duty to train a group of kids, no matter how potentially talented?"

"…because you believe the gains would outweigh the cost."

"Exactly," He nodded, satisfied I understood. "Currently Uzumaki is far from ready for handling any kind of responsibility, but give her a few years to mature under the teachings of Hatake and that would soon change. Then there is the added benefit of how you too would flourish under his instruction. Taking all that into consideration, the potential long-term gains more than justified the short-term loss of removing Hatake from the active roster."

"Do you really think that by making Naruto Hokage you can make me do whatever you want?" I tried to retort.

"Then by all means, feel free to refuse my offer." Danzo said dismissively. "As I have already said, I have no use for an unwilling successor. While you are the best choice I have available to me at the moment, you are not only one. If you refuse my offer I will simply select another."

And whoever he chooses will one day gain command over Root and become responsible for Naruto's safety. And, as hypocritical as it sounded, there was no way in Hell would I trust Naruto's safety to someone that _Danzo _of all people chose.

He had me.

How long had I been planning this? How many years had this been brewing in the background? Was it during my first year at the Academy when my talent first became publicly apparent and they saw how I bonded with Naruto, was that when they started to devise of a way to capitalize on it? Or did they just saw an opportunity and decided to take advantage of it? It felt disorientating just thinking about it, as if I was dancing to invisible strings all my life and I have only just begun to notice them.

For the second time since my reincarnation, ever since I found out about the hidden players behind the Uchiha Massacre, did I began to feel out of my depths when came to dealing with these damned ninjas.

"Loyalty can chain down any man. Where muscles and might can shatter steel and bend iron, it can do nothing to break free from the chains of the heart." Danzo said simply as he turned back towards the counter and picked up his chopsticks. "Once Hatake had finished training her, Uzumaki will make a fine Hokage. She has that spark that draws in people to her, its still only an ember right now but one day it will flare like bonfire. Hiruzen believe it to be so, and I admit I may do as well. But any flame, no matter how bright it shines or fiercely it burns, could be puffed out. Which is why you will remain by her side as a shadow, bound there by your loyalty, protecting her for all that seeks to harm her. I am certain that you will keep her safe, just as I had done for Hiruzen."

"Are you sure you should be telling me all of this." I said, "Aren't you afraid I'd try to slip the leash you're trying to tie around my neck if you tell me how you're using my own loyalty to manipulate me."

"No," Danzo stated as he began taking small methodical bites from his meal, which had probably gone cold by now. "The truth can be an insidious thing at time, it hold you at bay better than any lie. A pretty lie can be broken but the truth will always hold true. That is what makes the Root strong."

I frowned, not understanding what he was getting at, and it must have shown on my face because Danzo elaborated.

"Look around you," he commanded, still focusing on his food though he didn't seem to be enjoying it as far as I can tell, "how many of my men do you see?"

With my Byakugan still active I didn't even need to shift my head to see, but I still had trouble answering him. A quick head count told me that, if you included the children, there were over hundred Root members in the restaurant alone but there were more people loitering outside in the surrounding streets. The problem was that I had no idea if they were Root or just ordinary civilian, they were acting so natural – a couple making out in an alley way, an elderly lady out for a late night stroll with her dog, a staggering drunk trying and failing to make his way back home – I had no way of telling if they were Root, not without a far more thorough examination.

I decided to ignore the people outside and just stick to the ones I saw in the store. "A hundred and four."

"This is only little more than half of the number I have stationed in Konoha. In total, including the non-combatants, there are eleven hundred Root members scattered throughout the Elemental Nations." Danzo said casually, as if he hadn't rattled a number that vastly outstripped the size of my own Clan. "And all of them serve me willingly."

"How?" I asked, unable to guess how he managed to gather so many men under his command. He couldn't have kidnapped and brainwashed that many, could he?

"I saved them." Danzo answered.

"From what?"

"War," He said, "starvation, abusive parents, child-slavery, prostitution. Take your pick. Where ever you go you'd always find people suffering, even in the greatest of cities you'd find them if you care to look. Peel away the pretty exterior that the world tries to show, look beneath the surface and there they'll be, clinging to life in the dirt from where they had been tossed away, surviving in the fringes and outskirts of a world that does not want them. Unwanted and unseen, suffering even as the people around them happily live their live blissfully unaware, and perhaps even willingly ignorant of their pain.

"They despise the life they had been given, even as they desperately cling to it, refusing to die, refusing to accept that they were born into this world with no greater purpose than to just suffer and die.

"I find them. The war orphans in starving in the streets, children suffering under a drunken father's fists, slaves victims of sex-traffickers whose souls were every bit as broken and battered as their bodies, I find them all, gather them together and give them a purpose greater than just suffering and death. I feed them, teach them letters and numbers, to fight, put their minds and body back together and help learn how to be strong. You would not believe the devotion they give just for that; just a belly full of food and little bit of kindness when others has shown them none and a child would happily bleed just for your approval. Then when they are deemed ready, both physically and mental, I administer them the final test."

_To kill their brother _– that was the Root's final examination, to kill a fellow Root member who had been raised by their side throughout their training as siblings. It was what Sai had been forced to do, to kill the person he loved more than anyone else in the world, only after he did that could he be full initiated into Root.

At least that's what I thought, until Danzo proved otherwise.

"I show them their homes."

"…You what?" I asked, confused in more ways than one.

"I let them see their old homes. I take them back to the cities or villages where I found them and I let them see what become of the people they had left behind. Their old friends, their abusers and tormentors, the others who had starved and suffered alongside of them that I had chosen not to save, I show them what had become of them. It is rarely a pretty sight. Sometimes there was nothing to go back to but burned husks of ruins and shallow graves. Once they see with their own two eyes what their fates would have been had I not stepped into their live, I give them a choice: Leave or stay."

"You let them go?" I managed to ask through my steadily growing shock.

Danzo just waved a hand in front of his face dismissively, as if he was swatting away a fly. "You think me a fool Hyuuga? What use do I have for an unwilling assassin? Better to let them roam free than have them turn their blades on my back when I least expect it. It is why I give them a choice to opt out early on, before they were properly trained, so there would be no danger in letting them go. Only if they chose to stay will they be allowed to be properly."

"And how many choose to stay?"

"More than you might imagine." Danzo replied, "As I said, a little bit of kindness and they would bleed for me."

"You know," I smiled sardonically, "I find it ironic that after all this talk about only accepting those who willingly following you, yet here you are, manipulating me like a puppet to force me to do what you want."

"You misunderstand me Hyuuga, if you feel so adamant about it then by all means, feel free to leave." Danzo snorted derisively, "All I have done is made you aware of the circumstance that exist around you so you could better make an educated choice. No matter what you decide, those circumstances will not change. I have no intentions of coercing you into anything, should you refuse I will allow you to leave this place freely. You maybe be valuable to my plans, but you are far from irreplaceable. No one is. There are others I can pick from, perhaps not quite as qualified to the role as I would hope, but good enough for me to work with. So take solace in knowing that should you decide to refuse, I will only allow someone to succeed me if I had absolute faith that they would keep the Hokage safe. Of that, you have my word."

I blinked, not expecting that. "I'm honestly not sure what to think about that." I admitted, "From the rumors I would have thought that you wouldn't have given me the option to refuse."

Danzo scoffed and turned towards me, setting his chopsticks down, "You make me repeat myself Hyuuga. I know very well what the rumors paint me out to me, I was the one who started them in the first place, but I am also very much aware of the dangerous of an unwilling tool. No ninja should ever put his life to a weapon that they could not trust. Better to go without."

"Then all those things about Root being nothing more than emotionless husks of men are false?" I probed, trying to feel out the truth from the fiction.

The existence of Root was something of an open secret in Konoha. Everyone knew they were real, but no one knew what they did or who they were. So outside of rumors and the occasional horror story, I knew very little of how Root operated. And as I have already learned the hard way that my knowledge from the show could not be trusted.

"Nonsense." Danzo replied, a hint of disapproval leaking into his voice. "What use would a ninja that cannot feel be to me? The vast majority of Root act as spies and covert agents, how would they be able to perform their duties if they cannot express emotions? Look at my men surrounding us, even knowing who they are can you tell them apart from ordinary citizens? Anger, fear, love, frustration, they need to be able to fake all these emotions well enough to be indistinguishable from they real thing if they wish to fool those around them, and how would they be able to that if they have never felt them?

"Beyond that, emotions serve other roles; they can be both the greatest of teachers and motivators. Fear teaches a man how to survive, how to look before he leaps, without it we'd all run recklessly to our deaths. While pain, it too serves a lesson; it teaches to not repeat out mistakes and motivates us to try harder in order not to fail and feel it again. And then there is loyalty. I believe I do not need to explain why having a man trained to kill lacking such sentiment would be a bad idea. The perfect ninja is not one who cannot feel, but one who can put aside their feeling when needed."

"This is why while I have had all of Root undergo an extensive emotional control program, not to burn out their emotions but to control it. While the outward result of such training is such that it could easy be confused to rendering its subjects emotionless, in truth it is anything but. Every member of Root can care and feel just as well as you can." Danzo paused to think on it for a moment, before he amended, "Perhaps even better if your psychic evaluation is anything to go by."

More and more, I was beginning to steadily lose all faith in my knowledge from the show.

Maybe I was being to naive but talking like this, I was beginning to feel all the fear and trepidation I had initially held for the man begin to drain away. Danzo…he might not be anywhere near as frightening as I first thought he might be.

By all reports this Danzo was genuinely loyal to Konoha and the Hokage. Unlike in the show where is where he was underhanded, manipulative, heartless monster that controlled the events from the shadow while all the while plotting to usurper the Hokage and take his place, here he was underhanded, manipulative, heartless monster that controlled the events from the shadow while being completely loyal to the Hokage and was fiercely protective of the man.

But meeting the real life version of him instead of the caricature from a child's story – which had proven to be an inaccurate representation of reality – I realised that maybe, just maybe, Danzo wasn't so bad after all.

Then I noticed that someone was staring at me.

Even though I didn't need to, I turned to my head towards my right, away from the counter, towards where a girl stood not two paces away.

She couldn't have been more than nine at most, and even that may have been pushing it. She was a slip of a girl, dressing a white summer with dirty-blonde haired that curled down to her shoulders. She was one of the handful of children in the restaurant who were brought along with her parents – though if what Danzo implied was true then they probably weren't her real parents.

But that wasn't what had caught my attention.

She was staring at me.

As in looking at me with wide unblinking eyes. Empty eyes. Blank. Not cold, not hardened, they were empty, her eyes we a void, like holes in her head. I couldn't see in a hint of emotion in those brown orbs of her, they might as well have been made of plastic for all the life they held. Her expression was no better, it was something that would have been more suited on a manikin than a child's.

What was made worse was how everybody around us acted as if they couldn't see her, they just carried no with what they were doing as if none of them noticed the statuette girl staring blankly at me. They just continued on laughing, drinking, eating, chatting while she stood there in the middle of it all, invisible in a crowd of people with he exception for me.

It was like they were playing a part of a script, extras to the a scene of a movie, and they were told to ignore everything happening around the main characters in order to not break the illusion.

"I never did well with children." Danzo confessed, catching sight of the girl who was _still _staring at me. He frowned as he examined her, "Their underdeveloped minds never cope well with the program, it leaves rather… incomplete at times. Which is why I rarely bother training with anyone so young."

Danzo reach out to spin her around by the shoulders before he sent her forward with a firm push on her back, towards where her 'parents' sat chatting a few meters away. She complied obediently, not putting up any resistance, but even them she didn't stop staring at me. Her head swirling around almost as far as her neck would allow as she kept those blank eyes trailed on me.

Stiffly, I turn around to face the counted, fully unnerved by the experience.

_Okay__,_ everything I just said about Danzo not being too bad, I take it back. I take it all back, he was evil. Pure fucking evil.

Looks like Danzo might have understated the side-effects of 'emotional control program' just a tad bit. If Itachi was put through something like that then no wonder he managed to go through with wiping out his entire Clan. It made me wounder what other things Danzo might have embellished or understated or even left out, and how many of them were outright lies.

I had no idea, but I couldn't take anything he said to me at face value. I sincerely doubted that Danzo was the type of person to have any hangups about lying.

"You need not answer me tonight," Danzo said as he pushed himself up. He bent down to pick up a cane that I hadn't noticed leaning against the side of the counter. Turning, he looked down at me. "My end may be drawing near but I'm not about to pass away anytime soon. There is time enough to think on the matter before a decision is to be made."

Danzo made to walk away, his cane thumping on the ground with every step, but he barely made it more than a couple paces away before he stopped. "There is one more issue you need to be aware of." He looked back at me over his shoulder. "In two weeks times, a B-Rank mission will be arriving from the Land of Waves. Hiruzen will assign the mission to your team. Due to several factors, it is imperative that the mission is completed successfully. Make sure that it is successful no matter what the cost, do everything in your power to make it so. Consider this as an example of the work you'd be expected to complete should you accept my offer."

Then, before I had a chance to get a word in, Danzo turned and hobbled away, his cane thumping on the ground with every step. A path seemed to open up in the crowded restaurant as he walked, waiters moving out of his path or customers pulling their seat in to give him room but they did it so naturally that if I hadn't known they were all Root I wouldn't have realised what they were doing.

I kept my eye on him the entire time, both on him and any of the Root members that happen to stray too close to where I was sitting. Somehow, despite all of my fears, it looked like I just might be able to walk away from this meeting a live and with all my body parts intact, but I wasn't about to let my guard down until I was back home, safe and sound behind the compound wall and the dozens of guard protecting the place.

Just as I thought I was free of him, when he was only a single step away from walking over the threshold of the restaurant and into the street outside, Danzo stopped in place.

"Before we part ways, I would like to leave you with word of warning." Danzo didn't bother looking over his shoulder as he spoke. "Consider it a gift, an apology for taking so much of your time."

"What is it?" I asked, eager to see him gone.

"In the world of Shinobi, there is a dark side to everything. No matter how innocent it may at first appear, hidden beneath the surface you'll find the ugly truth. Your Clan is no different."

"Just what are you trying to implying _Danzo_?" I nearly snapped at him, far too tired to bother with adding an honorific. At this point I couldn't bother to bring myself to care what he thought of me or wanted to say, I wanted him to get to the point and leave.

"Just what I said. It is hard to notice oddities of our surroundings when we are born into it, so it is no surprise that even one as perceptive as you would not have noticed. But do you not find it strange that Hyuuga Mio is your mother."

"…Are you threatening my family?" Letting a hint of steel leak into my voice. I didn't care even if he was Danzo, if he thought-

"Nothing of the sort, I assure you. I just thought you should be aware of the circumstances surrounding your birth." Danzo still faced the door, not bothering to look back at me. "The Main House of the Hyuuga Clan is famed for consistently producing children with the strongest eyes in their generation. Far stronger than any of the members from the Branch House. The secret is simple selective breeding. While the Branch members are allowed, withing reason, to choose whoever they wish to marry, the Main House members are not. While they may nominate a candidate, in the end it is up to the current Head along with elders of the Clan to decided who they will marry. They research the potential bride's or groom's ancestry, taking into account of the risk of in-breeding along with unwanted hereditary traits such as genetic illnesses. They also examine the bride's or groom's physical, intelligence and Chakra capabilities along with a variety of other factors known only to them and then, and only then, would they come into a decision. For generations they have chosen their Heir's spouse in order to produce the most powerful children possible. And while controversial at times, the system has worked. The Byakugan belonging to the members of the Main House are far superior to those of the Branch House."

"Yes, I am aware of all this." This is all basic knowledge to me. I knew that part of the reason why both by father and I could see so much farther with our Byakugan than the mast majority of the Clan could be attributed to simple good genes. "What does that have to do anything?"

"Have you ever not stopped to wonder then, why Hyuuga Mio was ever allowed to marry your father?"

My mouth was already half way open to sprout out a reply before I found myself pulling up short.

He was right. Why was my mother allowed to marry Hiashi?

I hadn't really thought of it before, it's not like it really mattered to me how my parents got together, but now that's it been pointed out to me I couldn't imagine either my grandfather or the other elders approving the match.

Mio wasn't a ninja, she was a civilian. My mother hated violence – she was the closest thing to a pacifist I had ever met since my reincarnation – and never had any interest even as child on becoming one. Even if she had, it was unlikely that the Academy would have accepted her due to her poor health.

This alone would have made her an unsuited candidate to becoming my father's wife, but on top of all was her eyes. The strength of my mother's Byakugan was weak, a little bellow average, and for that fact alone she should have never been permitted to marry Hiashi.

"Hyuuga Mio's eyes could only be described as mediocre at best," Danzo spoke as if reading my mind, "yet her blood was allowed to mix in with that of the Main House. Hiashi was insist that he would accept no other but her and finally, after several months of pleading, his father finally caved in and gave his consent. It had caused quite an uproar at the time. Many member from both Main and the Branch House had strongly opposed the marriage, some went as far to call it an act of betrayal. The only true difference between the members of the Main House and the Branch House was the superior bloodline of the Main House, without it then the division of the Clan into different Houses holds no meaning."

"Even I do not know how Hiashi managed to go through with the marriage despite the fierce opposition" Danzo admitted, "At the time I was not as well informed on the Hyuuga Clan's internal politics as I would have liked, but not long after the wedding he had announced that his wife was with child. This did nothing but exasperate the situation as it meant that main bloodline would be polluted with weakness, but Hiashi tried to quell the unrest by promising that the child will be a strong one, that his heir will be the strongest the Clan had ever produced.

"No one truly believed him, recognising the baseless bluff for what is was, but they were willing to wait and see. For a time. Once the child was born and proven to be inferior, then they would have all the proof that they needed to bring an end to the sham of a marriage and pair Hiashi with a proper wife. There was even talk among the more radical member that should Hiashi refuse to end the marriage even after they had proven that Mio cannot produce a proper heir, then Mio should be forcibly removed from the situation – for the good of the Clan. And once she was no longer part of the picture, it would only be a matter of time until Hiashi could be made to see reason and remarry again. This time to a more appropriate wife, one that will give birth to a powerful heir."

I felt my heart turn cold.

It had always bugged me on what had happened to Mio in the show. The women I knew, who had birthed and raised me in my second life, would have never permitted her children to grow apart from her. She would clung to her daughters, woven herself into their daily lives and made sure that they knew how much she loved them every single day.

Yet in the show she had never made a single appearance. She hadn't even been mention in passing, and until I had been reincarnated I hadn't even been aware what her name was. Though it was never outright stated it was heavily implied she had passed away.

And I was getting a pretty good idea on how she died.

"But then you were born." Danzo carried on, his back still facing me. "The greatest prodigy the Hyuuga Clan had ever produced. Despite of everyone's fear and expectations you were not weak, you were superior. Excelling in every way, both in mind and body, just as Hiashi had promised, thus quelling all those that had voiced their discontent. But I do not believe I need to explain to you what would have happened if things had turned out differently, if you hadn't been born a prodigy."

No, no he didn't. I had no trouble imagining what would have happened, I didn't need to, I had already seen it happen.

Hinata.

Timid and shy, weak in both spirit and courage, she was everything that the Clan had warned Hiashi she would be. Weak. With the evidence there for all to see, Hiashi no longer had a leg to stand on. But my father was nothing if not stubborn, I could easily imagine him refusing to leave his wife. He would have even gone as far as siring another child – Hanabi – in a second attempt to created a strong heir with his wife.

But they were not willing to wait.

They already had all the proof that they needed in Hinata, they would not wait and waste who knew how many more years for Hanabi to grow and prove them right again. No, they had to put a stop to this now before Mio continued polluting the blood of the Main House with her weakness.

So they killed her.

Was that why Hiashi was so harsh on his eldest daughter? Because she was the reason why he had lost his wife? Because of her weakness, the one he had tried to beat out of her in an attempt to rid of it, was that why their relationship had become what it was?

And Hinata, was that why she had been so timid? Because she knew it was her fault that they took her mother away?

I would never know.

All I knew was that if any of my Clan mates still held into any ideas of killing my mother...well, I knew of a room under a certain temple where a little boy could use some company.

Sasuke was probably getting lonely anyway.

"See?" Startled out of my thoughts, I looked up to find Danzo watching me with a satisfied look on his face. "After having implied that your own Clan might have assassinated your mother had things gone different, you didn't try and deny, didn't started wailing like a child that there was no way your family would ever do such a thing. Instead you simply accepted the harsh reality you were faced with and began preparing plans on how to deal with it. I could almost see your mind as it began churning away plans and contingencies."

"It seems that I have chosen well," Danzo almost appeared to smile for a short instant before he turned away and began to leave. "Do consider accepting my offer Hikaru, I believe you would do well surviving in the shadows."

Then he was gone.

Walking out of the restaurant and into the dark streets outside.

And that would be the last I saw of Danzo for a long while.

* * *

I see. So that's how Danzo gets them.

He gives kids orders that they couldn't refuse anyway.

The night air was chilly as I made my way home in the empty street, by I barely noticed it, too engrossed in going over everything that had happened. After Danzo had left I had waited for a solid ten minutes as I kept an eye on him and made sure that he was really gone before I left. Even after leaving the restaurant I hadn't turned off my Byakugan, and kept constantly checking my surrounding to make sure I wasn't being followed or walking into an ambush. I wasn't, thankfully, but I had no intention of letting my guard down until I was safe behind the solid walls of the compound.

_Succeed_ – that was what he ordered me to do in my next mission. Something I would have done my best to do anyway. It's not as I would have wanted to fail any mission I was given. What else was I supposed to do to any mission the Hokage assigned me but try and succeed? By ordering me to do something that I was already going to do anyway, it gave the false impression that I was actually following his orders.

It was a tiny thing, but a crucial one. In the young impressionable mind of a twelve year old, it was a stepping stop he could use to build his authority on. I had seen it happen many time in my old lifetime, how small things would quickly lead to something big.

It reminded me of how some of the kids in my old high-school got involved with drugs after they started hanging out with the wrong crowd. The method the dealers used was very similar. They started them off by asking them to do something small, harmless chores or favors, like deviling messages or maybe even small packages, and the kids would gladly do it, eager to please. Then they would start them selling. Usually it was something not too illegal like cigarettes at first, from there it wouldn't be too hard to upgrade to weed, another drug that's considered harmless by the general public, but it was one more step into their grip. Then, before long, they find themselves neck deep involved.

That's how they get you. Start with the small harmless things that wouldn't seem like a big deal, easing you in, steadily raising the stakes a little more at every step as you grew used it. Little by little they would raise the ante, until one day you look back and your surprised to find how you went from selling cigarettes to dealing cocaine.

That was what Danzo was trying to do to me, build up the habit of listening to his commands. It was an effective strategy against kids, and if I had really been twelve years old it may have even worked.

Then there was the little bomb Danzo dropped at the end.

Why did Danzo bothered telling me about my mother and the circumstances of my birth? It wasn't to help me, that was for sure, not when the entire incident had been over and done with for years now.

No, the reason why Danzo told me was to read my reactions. In addition to seeing how I handled the news, he wanted to discovered if I had cared for Mio. Due to the psychiatric report he had on me it probably wasn't a sure thing that I would care about my mother like it would have been with other children, so he dropped that little bomb at me because he wanted to find out. And now that he knew, he has one more emotional leverage he can use against me like he had with Naruto.

He was probably already dreaming up ways he could us the information to manipulate me into becoming a mini-Danzo.

For all of his claims to the contrary, I didn't believe for a second that Danzo would be willing to let me go. Danzo wasn't the type of person who would take no for answer. All his talk about free will is probably little more than that, talk. In his mind it is less about giving me a choice or telling me the truth, and more amount saying the things he thinks I need to hear to make me do what he wants. That how men like him manipulate people, by telling people what they wanted to hear instead of the truth.

What else had he told me was a lie, I wonder?

Not too much I'd wager, he wouldn't want me catching him in an outright lie and risk losing any trust he might have developed with me - which was freaking none – so the majority of what he said was properly true. The trick was spotting the lies he had sprinkled in with the truth.

The one thing I was almost positive he was lying about was letting the uninitiated Root members go. No matter how little they knew, they were far too much of a security risk to allow to live. And Danzo doesn't strike me as the type to allow a security leak to exist when he could easily silenced it with but a single knife stroke to the throat. Most likely, he only gave them the illusion of choice, allowing those who refused to join Root to leave, only to send an assassin after them.

Yes, that fit the image of Danzo far better. He didn't earn his current reputation for being scared of getting his hands dirty.

But it doesn't matter whether Danzo had lied to me or not. What does matter is that Danzo dared to use Naruto and possibly my mother to manipulate me in doing what he wanted.

Honestly, looking it over it was actually a good plan, and might have worked too if things had been a little different.

But Danzo, you made two critical mistakes.

First off, I'm not a kid. The plans you're using were designed with a young impressionable child in mind, not for someone like me who had lived for over five decades in total.

Then there was your second mistake-

I have no intention of becoming anyone's shadow.

I was going to become a God.

Danzo, you thought I would make a good replacement for you. Well, you're right, I would make a great successor. Let me show you just how much like you I can really be.

Now, how do I turn this around to my advantage?

* * *

_***Chapter End***_

**Author's Notes: **Hope you enjoyed the chapter. Next chapter will involve a lot interaction with all of our favorite characters, and then, onto the Wave.


	12. Chapter 12: A Cat's lot in Life

**Author's notes:**

** I'M BACK FORM THE DEAD!**

Well not really, but it certainly feels like it. Its has been far too long since I've last posted a chapter and I am sorry about that. I wish I could say I had big reason for it but I'm afraid it was plain and simple exhaustion that kept me away. Work has been hectic for the past few months (what with my boss – the man who hired me – quitting without warning), and by the time I get home I'm simply too exhausted to muster up the motivation to write.

So time and energy, the bane of writers everywhere...And procrastinators. Wonder if that's a coincidence.

But thankfully things seem to be getting better again, and I managed to get find the energy over the last month to begin typing again. It may not be my best work I admit, its hard to polish of the rust after so long, (part of the reason why I had trouble is that I had planned the outline for the chapter back in January, and now I'm having trouble typing it out after so long without the character coming out stiff) but hopeful this will help kick start my engines and I'll begin writing in a more reasonable pace again.

And for those of you PMed me with question, I apologize for taking so long to reply but I plan to go through my in-box and reply to all of you over the next couple days, so hang tight for a little while longer.

And on to the chapter itself. Its more of a set up and comedy chapter, things that are introduced here will he help prepare some key issues for the rest of the arc, BUT starting from the end of the next chapter, the twists and action will begin again. So for those looking for action rejoice, your wish is almost granted. Look forward to it.

And honestly, I may have written what may become some of my funniest jokes and scenes in this chapter, so despite behind a little rusty I hope you enjoy it.

Now onto the show.

***Chapter Start***

* * *

_A Cat's Lot In Life_

"I can't believe it."

Shikamaru didn't so much as look up as I dumped another pile of books on the desk in front of him. Giving another tired sigh, he just lazily picked up a book from the top of the pile and began to wrap it with simple brown wrapping paper, completely plain except for a tiny stamp of a dog paw printed on one corner.

Once he finished wrapping the book up he passed it his left, where Naruto gave a grunt of acknowledgment as she took it. Setting down the package before her, Naruto picked the next a name and address from a list on a clipboard she had set on one side, before picking up an ink brush and began to write on the wrapped book with a steady hand.

Out of us all, Naruto had the best hand writing by far which was the reason why she was in charge of writing down the names and addresses. I have never gotten the hang of writing with an ink brush. Ball-point pens were never invented in the Elemental Nations, or if it was then it never managed to gain any popularity, so they only method left to write with was a brush. And to say I was terrible at it would be putting it mildly. Even after a solid decade of being forced to us it, my handwriting still resembled chicken scratches more than actual letters. While Shikamaru had a better hand than me, he tended to get sloppy when in came to writing down the correct names and addresses, so we couldn't give him the task unless we wanted to end up delivering packages to the wrong places.

That left Naruto.

Under her steady hand lines began to form, the brown paper soaking up the ink as the brush was drawn across its surface, leaving behind neat flowing lines and smooth curves. The names she wrote down remind of me calligraphy, more a work of art than mere penmanship. She finished writing the name and address swiftly, setting the package to one side before dipping the brush into an ink well only start all over as Shikamaru passed her another wrapped package.

"No, I mean I literally cannot believe it." I reiterated as I walked to nearby wooden crate and pulled out another stack of books. "How could someone like _Kakashi_ own a bookstore of all things?"

Surrounding us, stacked so high that they nearly brushed the ceiling of the warehouse, were dozens if not hundreds wooden crates. Each filled to the brim with books. And stamp onto the side of each wooden crate was the logo of 'Pakkun's Bookstore', a dog's paw print.

It had been almost two full days since I found out and _still _I couldn't bring myself to believe this wasn't a dream. That Kakashi, the lazy, porn loving, ever late Hatake Kakashi, owned not one, but an entire a chain of bookstores in Konoha. That alone should of pushed the limits of my incredibility but when you stack on the fact that it was a _successful_ chain of bookstores, it made me feel as if I had accidentally stumbled into a rabbit hole at some point and never realised.

It wasn't that unusual for highly successful ninjas to own other businesses in Konoha. It was actually rather common. It wasn't that hard to understand why, as most ninjas who lived long enough to retire tended to have more money than they knew what to do with. So a lot of veterans who ended up amassing a small fortune over the years would try their hand in running their own businesses – often something to do with their hobbies – though the result of those business venture tended to be a bit of a mixed bag.

Just because ninjas were literally killers didn't mean jack squat in the cut throat world of business. Being a master of stealth and espionage was all well and good but it won't do you much good if no idea how to balance your books, or how to effectively promote your products. Which was why more often than not those businesses tended to end belly up.

Not always though, every now and again one of them would end up becoming booming success. The Yamanaka Clan's flower store was a good example of this, the Akimichi Clan's world renowned restaurants was another.

And now apparently so too was the Hatake Clan's bookstores added to the list of success business started by Shinobi, which was also known as Pakkun's Bookstore.

"Are you really that surprised?" Naruto paused in her writing to pick up a copy of the very book we were packaging and hold it to me with a distasteful face. "I thought it was obvious that the pervert would own something like this."

Held in Naruto's hand was a green covered book with the words '_Icha Icha – Make love, not war' _printed on its surface. The latest book of the best selling Icha Icha series, a tale of a Kunoichi who ended a war through seduction – or so Kakashi told me. And even though it had only officially been released in the market for a couple of days it was obviously going to become another best selling book for the series as the sales were already going through the roof.

That was where we came in.

The one thing, literally the only thing that made sense in this entire debacle, was that every branch of Pakkun's Bookstore came stocked with a large supply of Icha Icha books. They had an entire section dedicated solely to the franchise. And for good reason too, as it appeared that that Kakashi had somehow managed to strike a deal with Jiraiya for his stores to become the sole supplier of Icha Icha in the village. Every single copy of the books in Konoha had to pass through one of his stores at one point or another.

And guess who needed an extra set of hands to deliver their newest shipment.

Normally he wouldn't have been able to get away with it. There were laws in place preventing Jonin Instructors from abusing their power. They couldn't just go around ordering their team to do manual labour for them, if they tried then the Hokage's foot would stomp down on them. Hard.

However, like all laws it wasn't perfect. There were ways to work around them, loopholes in the wording of the law that could be exploited by someone devious enough and morally bankrupt to take advantage of them. And as I had the recent misfortune to discover, there are absolutely no laws that prevented a Team Instructor from hiring their own team out for personal missions so long as they go through official channels.

And Kakashi, being the type of prick that he was, was only too happy to abuse this loophole.

I couldn't even begin to tell you how many times we were forced to run from one side of the village to the other, dropping off what felt like countless copies of the newest Icha Icha. Turns out there was a _massive_ hidden fan-base for the series here in Konoha but – unlike our shameless Sensei – most people were too embarrassed to be seen publicly buying a copy. Instead, fans would stop to by a branch of Pakkun's Bookstore, pretend to buy a copy of some random book, and while they checkout at the cash register they'd quietly place an order for a copy of Icha Icha with the store clerk to be delivered to their homes in a later date – discretely of course. All books will be covered in plain brown wrapping paper to hide their content from any prying eyes.

And there were a _lot_ of orders.

Even after two full days of packing and delivering the book, we were not even half done. We spent the last two mornings here, stuck in this warehouse packaging and labeling books, only to spend the rest of the day running from house to house hand delivering them to the customers. We couldn't even take advantage of Shadow Clones, Kakashi forbidding both Naruto and me from using them for some reason.

Kakashi _claim__ed_ that our work was meant to double up as training. Not only would this help as a team building exercise but by personally traveling though every street in Konoha – and I mean _every goddamn street, _I wasn't exaggerating the size of the hidden Icha Icha fan-base – we would familiarise ourselves with the layout of the entire village, a skill that would prove invaluable in future missions or in the event the village was ever attacked.

It was all bullshit of course. Reasonable sounding bullshit, but still bullshit.

Kakashi just needed some cheap laborer to deliver his goods and we just happened to be available. Well that, and I was also half way convinced that he fed off the suffering of children. I swear there better be some kind of legitimate training or team-building excises behind it all because if I ever find out that the only reason that he banned the use of Shadow Clones was to watch us suffer then I was gonna sick Naruto on him.

"Oh come on!" I was brought out of mussing by Naruto groaning in exasperation as she stared down at the list of customers, "He's a pervert too?"

I gave Naruto a mildly surprised look at her latest outburst. At the start of the mission Naruto would explode every couple of minutes whenever she spotted a name on the list she recognized, which there was a surprising lot of. I don't think she'd ever be able to look at Iruka in the same way every again. And the stink eye she gave Shikamaru when she spotted his father's name made me eternally gratefully that none of my relatives were on the list. Well, none of my direct relatives anyway. The Hyuuga was a big clan and I would have been more surprised to find that none of my clan-mates were on the list than the other way round. Though thankfully it wasn't anyone I usually interacted with. It would have been … awkward to say the least if I found out that my dad, _or god forbid my mother_, had brought a copy of the book.

As time wore on Naruto's reactions steadily began to diminish as she ran into more and more names that she recognised, until she ended up limiting herself to a low grumbling whenever someone she knew cropped up on the list.

Which made her latest outburst a bit of surprise. Naturally, I decided to investigate.

Hauling the latest pile of books out of the crate, I brought them to Shikamaru and set them down on the desk before I walked over to Naruto and glanced over her shoulder.

It took me a full second to spot the name was staring at, and another second to the fully process the implication. And when I did, I felt a wicked smile bloom on my lips.

"Naruto," my eyes never moving off the name as I spoke, "I'm calling dibs. I want to deliver this one personally."

"You sure?" Naruto turned her blue eyes up to me in askance, before shrugging. "Fine, its not as if it makes a difference anyway." She then turned back to the list, giving it a distasteful look. "Still, I never thought _he_ was a pervert too. He seemed so nice too. Is ever man in the village a closet pervert or is it just a coincidence that almost all of my classmate's dads are on this list."

"Oh, Naruto," I felt my cheeks hurt from how wide I was smiling. "Its wasn't her dad that ordered the book, it was someone else."

"What?" she blinked, turning to look up at me in surprised. "But Hikaru his name and house address is written right here."

She pointed at a spot on the list, where the name and address of said customer was clearly printed out in plain black and white. Though unlike every other customer on the list, there was no first name there, just their last.

And knew precisely why.

Naruto frowned down at the name again, a thoughtful look on her face. "But if its not him, then who else could it be?"

* * *

Hurried footsteps could be heard coming from the inside the house, their owner of the feet yelling out an '_I'll get it_' as they rushed towards the door. I barely had the chance to remove my hand off the door after knocking before it was swung open, revealing the nervous eager face of one Ino Yamanaka.

"Hello," She chirped, nervous energy to pushing speak before she even had the chance to realise who she was talking to, "are you here to deliver– _Hikaru?_" Ino exclaimed, her rapid fire chattering came to a grinding halt as she finally took in the sight of me.

For a few second the blonde girl did nothing but stare, her pale blues blinking owlishly, clearly confused. "Hikaru, what are you doing here?"

"Hello Ino." I said warmly, brushing aside her confusion as I gave her the widest, shit eating grin I could manage.

She tensed, like a rabbit spotting the shadow of a hawk passing overhead, her survival instincts no doubt warning her of danger, but before she had a chance to do anything, I acted. "I have a package to deliver for you."

Reaching down into the backpack I had set down near my feet and pulled out a plain brown package – the Icha Icha volume that I was to deliver to this address – and held up before my face. "Care to guess as what it might be?"

There was a second, a long moment in which Ino stared in honest confusion between the package and me several time, before her eyes widened in comprehension as understood, her face turning a shade so red that it looked she caught on fire.

I swear, the memory of a blushing Ino as she dissolved into a stuttering mess will warm my heart for many years to come.

* * *

They called Konoha a village.

And perhaps once upon a time it was one, but that was not quite true anymore. Konoha had grown since its founding. From its humble beginning of the union of two clans, it quickly grew into something never witness before in the entire history of the Elemental Nations.

A Hidden Village.

What began as a collection of huts had expanded into something that more reminiscent of a busy town, or even a small city, than it did a village. In terms of Shinobi alone, Konoha's population numbered in the tens of thousands. Add in the civilians population to the mix then that number would easily quadruple.

The term Hidden 'Village' could no longer accurately describe what Konoha had become but as most things tended to do, the name stuck. It made a sort of sense I suppose. Konohagakure no sato meant the 'Village Hidden in the Leaves'. The 'Town Hidden in the Leaves' didn't have quite the same ring to it.

The point being was that Konoha had rapidly expanded since it founding, and with it, so had the number of missions it received.

There was a time not too long ago when the number of missions the Village would received in a day could be counted with the fingers of a single hand. Back then every single mission was handled by the Hokage himself, who would either accept or reject each offer personally on behalf of the entire Village before assigning the approved missions to a team he would have personally handpicked.

Those times were long gone.

These days there were dozens people working full time whose only jobs were to keep track of the massive influx of mission requests Konoha received. It was they who met with the clients, negotiated a contract before assigning an available team to compete it. Only important clients, such as the Daimyo, where ever exempt from this process.

In theory, this meant that the Hokage was no longer needed to involve himself in the daily grind of missions assignments, freeing up a lot of time that could now be spent on far much more crucial matters. However Sarutobi, always the sentiment sort, loved to personally get involved with the daily lives of his Shinobi whenever he could, and would take time from his busy schedule to personally assign missions to his men. During certain times of the year it wasn't an unusual sight to find the aging Hokage handing out the missions to newly minted Genin, spending a couple of extras minutes to spare them a few words of encouragement.

It was little things like that made the village as a whole see him as father figure, or perhaps it was a grandfatherly figure these days.

It was, I suppose, a way for him to get to personally know his newest recruits, to remember their faces and get a feel of them. But of course, even he couldn't do this all the time. Even if he tried to limit himself to just fresh Genin there was simply too many of us for him to handle on his own. Which was why he would only limit himself to meeting new Genin teams for their first couple of mission assignments. After that the new Genin teams would head to the 'Assignment Center', located in one of the lower levels of the Hokage Tower, whenever they needed to pick a new mission like most other teams did.

_Most_ being the operative word.

Our team was one of the exceptions. Every mission we took we personally received from the Hokage. Everyday, instead of stopping by the Assignment Center, we climbed the steps to the top of the tower and headed to the Hokage's office to report the completion of our last assignment or to receive a new one.

Some people would have a called it favoritism, others may even go as far as say it was nepotism. Personally I called it common sense. No matter how many times people tried to convince themselves otherwise, we were not all equal. An Academy student barely managing to keep up with the rest his class was less valuable than a prized student blazing through the coursework with ease. A child born to a Clan of ninjas gifted with a powerful bloodline limit would always be given more attention then an ordinary child coming from a civilian family.

There were right to do so.

People could call it whatever they wanted to, but the simple fact of the matter it wasn't favoritism that saw my team standing in front of the Hokage almost ever day. It was pragmatism. And if ninjas were anything, they were pragmatic.

To treat a team with two Clan Heirs, both of whom were considered to be geniuses in their own regard, along with a Jinchuuriki of the most powerful Tailed Beast as if they were just any other random Genin team would have been the height of stupidity.

No one had ever accused Sarutobi of being stupid.

So when we found ourselves lining up before the Hokage in his office that morning, with the old man sitting behind his desk, chewing on the tip of an unlit pipe with his usual genial smile sitting on his lips, no one thought anything unusual of it, it was just another day for team 7.

No one but me that is.

I had been counting the days since my unexpected encounter with Danzo, and it had been fourteen days. Exactly two weeks. And while it was entirely possible that nothing unusual would happen today, that we'd pick another random mission from the Hokage and be sent on our way as usual, I didn't believe it.

Say what you will of the man but Danzo had never stuck me as the type of person to fail to deliver on his promises.

* * *

"I still can't believe you kept that cat, Jiji."

Said cat meowed from where she lounged atop of the Hokage's desk, lazily turning its head to glance towards Naruto in apparent surprise. Or at least, I thought it was in surprise. It was kinda hard to tell. These days Tora always seemed to have a surprised expression plastered on her face.

The Hokage chuckled and ran a hand over the cat's back before scratching its ears, "I don't see what's so hard to believe it. Tora here has been a wonderful companion for an old man like me."

In response Tora began to purr and pressed her head into the Hokage's fingers, clear enjoying the treatment. Though you could never tell by looking at her face.

Even now, so long after the… _incident_ the poor cat never fully recovered from her ordeal.

Oh sure, she looked a healthier now that the bandages covering her bottom half was removed. And she could walk again, though not perfectly. Her hind legs seemed to have become permanently bowlegged, making her take wide exaggerated steps whenever she walked like a cowboy from one of those old westerns. And her tail remained permanently pointed up, straight and ridge as an iron bar. I have never once seen her tail lower from that position, not even when she slept.

But if you wanted any real proof that Tora never fully recovered from her ordeal, all you needed to do was look into the face of the tiny white and orange cat and stare at its unblinking eyes. Her soulful blue eye's were held permanently wide open, so round that they looked like golf balls that were about to roll out of her eye-sockets any second. That, along with the way her eyebrows were still raised up to her hairline, gave Tora a look of constant surprise.

No, really, every time I looked it at her it gave me the impression that someone had just shoved their fingers up her...well, you know. Even now as she purred in contentment under the Sarutobi's ministration her soulful blue eyes remained wide open, never blinking.

There were monks in the world who believed that the true enlightenment could only be reached through pain and suffering. That by suffering through the worst this world had to offer one can achieve an understanding to the true nature of world that escapes most men, allowing them to catch a peek of what laid in the next, supposedly a glimpse of some kind of nirvana. Some of the more superstitious Shinobi believed that was what happened to Tora.

They claimed that Tora, in her moment of suffering, had caught a glimpse of Nirvana. Which was was the reason why she never blinks anymore, because through her enlightened eyes the world she see around her is so blissfully beautiful that she cannot bring herself to look away and block the sight even for a moment, not even to blink.

Personally, I believed that there reason why she kept her eyes open was to make sure that no one tried to sneak up on her and shove their finger up her ass ever again. But that was just me.

Naruto glanced between the purring cat and the Hokage before she just shook her head in incomprehension and dropped the topic.

It had been almost four weeks since the end of our first disastrous D-rank mission, the now infamous Tora incident, and since then the tiny cat has become something of a common sight in the Hokage's office.

As expected, when we told the client of Tora's fate she took the news...rather poorly.

Madam Shinjimi, the Daimyo's wife and Tora's original owner, was an obese lady with a shrill voice and far too much makeup. She was also as stubborn and pig-head as they came, all too used to getting her way. So when the time came to deliver Tora to her and she found her precious cat in such a poor state she demanded to know what happened to it, ignoring all our attempts to convince her that she really_, __really,_ didn't want to know. Naturally she did not listen to our advice and so, as the team responsible, it fell on our shoulders to tell her what happened to her precious cat.

I swear, I felt the entire floor shake when the tub of lard fainted.

An hour or so later, a pale faced and much subdued Madam Shinjimi was seen being helped into her carriage that would take her back to the capital. Without her cat. It appeared that after our rather detailed explanation to the fate that befell her precious pet, she could no longer look directly at Tora without fainting.

Literally, every time she caught so much as a glimpse of said cat she would immediately turn a pale white and faint.

In the end, after repeatedly consoling the understandably distressed woman, it was decided that it would be best if she and Tora parted ways. And thus, Madam Shinjimi returned home leaving poor Tora behind. But for once luck was on Tora's side because she ended up finding a new home almost immediately.

Being the soft hearted man that he was, Sarutobi took pity on the poor creature and ended up adopting the cat as a pet. Now normally that would have been impossible. The very same reason why children were sent to retrieve Tora would have prevented the Hokage from adopting her; Tora was a Nekomata.

As a Nekomata, Tora could sense the true nature of an individual. In particular, she could sense any ill intent or corruption in them. She was so sensitive to it that Tora kept fleeing from Nobles because they were too corrupt for her to stand their presence for long. Now imagine how it must have felt like to live alongside Ninjas, professional assassins who constantly lied, manipulated, tortured and murdered people. Hell, Sarutobi himself played a part in the genocide of an entire Clan. In all honesty our presence should have sent her fleeing in terror the first chance she got.

However it quickly became apparently clear that Tora no longer gave a shit about our so called 'ill intent' anymore.

It wasn't surprising if you stopped to think of it. After surviving an unexpected anal virginity removal treatment via Kakashi, I doubt something as mundane as 'murdering back-stabbing Ninjas' could scare her anymore. Hell, I wasn't sure if she could even _feel_ fear again after having been traumatized so badly.

No seriously, the thousand yard stare she kept giving everyone in room paralytically screamed '_you would not believe __the shit I've seen_'. It was a look you'd expect to see only in the broken eyes of veterans from the worst wars, not on the fluffy face of a little cat.

Even I couldn't muster much of a reaction from Tora anymore.

Once, just the sight of me caused her to become petrified with fear. N ow though she barely noticed me. All she would ever do whenever she caught sight of me was to give a once over, before snorting in dismissal and looking away, eyes still wide open as golf balls from the horrors she had lived through.

Only Kakashi seemed to be able draw out any kind of emotional reaction from her these days.

Now normally, that would have been the end of Tora's story. But as it quickly became obvious, there was absolutely nothing normal about this cat.

Somehow, and don't ask me how because even I didn't fully understand it, Tora ended up becoming something of a mascot to the Hokage.

Apparently every Ninja and Genin that ended up standing before the Hokage's desk over the past couple of weeks took note of the unusual feline sitting there, and soon rumors of the Hokage's new pet began to spread. And whether it was out of pity or maybe even respect for a fellow survivor, Tora's popularity among the ninja population soon skyrocketed. People even began selling merchandise of the cat as Tora turned into some kind of fad. Just last week I saw Hanabi cuddling up to a plush doll of Tora out of all things.

Either way, by the end of the month since her adoption, Tora had somehow ended up becoming the unofficial mascot to the Village of Konoha.

I swear, sometimes it felt as if this entire world was mad.

"Anyway," Sarutobi stopped scratching Tora and turned his attention back to us, "I do believe you're here for a reason."

Lending down, Sarutobi reached into an open drawer from his desk and pulled out a dark green and black coloured scroll before holding it out towards us. "Team 7, for your latest mission you are to-"

"No."

The refusal cut through the air of the office, leaving a stunned silence in its wake.

Sarutobi blinked once before he turned to give Naruto a perplexed look. "Excuse me?"

"I said no." My blonde friend repeated, firmly planting her feet shoulder width apart as she crossed her arms before her chest, a familiar stubborn glint in her eye as she gave the Hokage a glare. "I'm not going on another D-rank mission and you can't make me."

The old man chuckled at her reaction. "Now Naruto-"

"No."

"Naruto, you can't just-"

"No!" Naruto held her arms before her in an 'X' shape and made a sound that reminded me of game-show buzzer. "No way, no how. I don't care what you say to me Jiji, I'm not doing it anymore. I'm done, finished! I'm not going on another crappy D-rank mission even if it kills me."

The aging Hokage appeared to be more amused by my blonde teammate's adamant defiance to take the mission than anything. "Come now, Naruto." Sarutobi set the scroll on his desk and leaned back into his chair, eyes tinkling merrily as he looked on his surrogate granddaughter, an indulgent smile clear on his lips. "D-rank missions can't be that bad."

Naruto just crossed her arms and sent him a baleful look. "I delivered porn Jiji."

Sarutobi couldn't quite restrain a wince.

"Ah, I suppose you did." He relented after a moment with a reluctant nod before leveling Naruto with a hard stare. "But sometimes Naruto, being a Ninja means doing work you don't want to do. The life of a Shinobi is not always a glamorous one. While yes there maybe times that we are sent on dangerous or even exciting mission, there is just as much of a chance that you'll be forced to work jobs that you may find… distasteful. Even so it will be your duty as a Ninja of the Leaf to complete those mission. As a young Kunoichi, its best that you learn this lesson here and now rather than out in the field."

Despite the solemnity the words were delivered, Naruto appeared unconvinced as she crossed her arms and sent the Hokage a disappointed look. "To your home." she said, "I had to deliver porn_ to your home."_

The Hokage had the good grace to blush at that. Yeah, I didn't think he completely thought things through when he assigned that particular mission to us.

Behind the Hokage, sunlight poured through the row of windows and filled the room, illuminating the office and granting us a breathtaking view of Konoha. Being one of the highest structures in the village meant that we could see almost everything from here. Something that Shikamaru, as usual, was all to happy to take advantage of.

From where he stood to my left, on the opposite side of Naruto from me, the lazy genuine was slouched over as he blankly gazed out the window, clearly unwilling to muster up the effort, let alone the interest, to get himself involved with the conversation. Instead the slouching boy was lost in some daydream as he stared at the clouds drifting by.

As for the 'responsible' leader of Team 7, he was leaning on a wall not too far behind us, flipping through the pages of his latest book while occasionally releasing a creepy giggle. Kakashi hadn't even glanced up as Naruto continued to reject the Hokage's offer of missions, too engrossed in his book to bother, most likely all to willing to leave it up to Sarutobi to deal with her.

While all this was happening, I remained quietly standing by Naruto's right side, forcing myself to remain still and not fidget least I bring undue attention to myself. It wasn't that I felt uncomfortable in the Hokage's presence, far from it. Due to my proximity to Naruto I had ended up spending a lot of time around Sarutobi, so much so that any nervousness I may have felt speaking to the leader of the village had long faded away. Besides, Sarutobi had such a grandfatherly air about him that I would have felt right at home in his presence even if I had been a green awe-struck Genin meeting him for the very first time.

So no, it wasn't Sarutobi that was bothering me, rather it was the lack of Danzo that had me so on edge.

A small part of me had expected him to be here, standing by the Hokage as his plans unfolded just as he wanted. In hindsight that was absurd. Danzo was never the type to act out in the open. He was the kind who stuck to the shadows so much that you can never know for sure if he had a hand in something or not.

What made it worse was that I knew that he could have been hiding in here with us and I would never know it. There was so many hidden panels and niches in the Hokage office that an entire squad of Ninja could hide and we'd never be the wiser. Actually, there probably was a squad of hidden Ninjas here with in us. The ever present yet never seen Anbu squad that guarded the Hokage day and night were no doubt hiding somewhere over our heads, but as they were always here they didn't count.

I itched to activate my Byakugan at the thought of Danzo being nearby, to open my sights to any hidden dangerous but I couldn't. Not here, not when I was in the Hokage's office standing before the man himself, not without a good reason. So left with no other option, I stood by Naruto's side and tried my best to keep my emotions off my face.

It was at times like this that I was truly gratefully for the apathetic mask that all Hyuuga's seem to instinctively know to wear. Had I been into any other clan, the blank face I wore might have been seen as a sign of nervousness, but as a Hyuuga, it was just considered part of our natural expression. And I shamelessly took advantage of that fact to help me hide my nerves without appearing out of character.

"-But Jiji, I want to do something more amazing. Not babysitter or delivering someone's porn. So find us something more incredible or else we're not doing it. And don't try and trick me Jiji," Naruto pointed an accusing finger at man. "I know my rights." A self assured smirk grew on her lips as she smugly crossed her arms in triumph. "You can't make us take a mission unless we want to. Hikaru said so, so it must be true."

Even as I fought the urge to face-palm, I couldn't quite keep the reluctant grin from made its way to my lips. Only Naruto would try to put my comments on the law – that of a mere Genin – above that of the Hokage himself.

After shooting a quick glance to the blonde, I turned to look at the Hokage to gauge his reaction, and it was clear that the old man must have felt the same way I did because he glanced my way, one of his eyebrow arched, and we shared a look of mutual amusement at the absurdity that was Naruto.

After a second Sarutobi shook his head and turned back to Naruto, hands steepled before him in an attempt to cover his smile. Not that it did any good, what with the way his eyes seemed to all but twinkle with amusement from under the brim of his hat.

"Is there nothing I can do to convince you take this mission Naruto?" He asked, nodding towards the mission scroll sitting on his desk, but Naruto refused to take it and shook her head adamantly. The old man gave a theatrical sigh as he pick up the scroll. "Very well then, if you insist on it that much I'll give you a C-rank mission instead."

"Jiji, I already said – wait what?" Naruto cut herself off in the middle of her tangent as she registered what he said.

A tiny quirk appeared on one corner of his lips, "I said you've won Naruto. Your team has already completed the minimum required D-ranks new Genin teams need to qualify for their first C-rank. I suppose if you feel so strongly about it then there is no harm in granting you a C-rank."

Going by the look of stunned disbelief that was plastered on Naruto's face, I don't think she actually believed she would get her way despite how stubbornly she fought. Slowly though, the reality began to sink in and her expression was replaced by a wide elated grin.

"YAHOO~~!" Leaping in a fit of joy, Naruto through one fist into the air before spinning to me. "You hear that Hikaru? We're getting a C-rank mission! A C-Rank! We're going to be doing _real_ Ninja stuff, like rescuing a princess, or fighting an army or -"

"It is a shame though," despite the soft tone, Sarutobi's voice still managed to be heard over Naruto's chattering. He looked down at the green and black mission scroll held in his hands. "After all the trouble I went through of preparing you a B-rank mission, only for you to reject it."

I swear, you could hear a pin drop from how quite the room suddenly became.

Naruto, who had frozen in place mid-celebration, stiffly rotated her now pale white face towards the Hokage. "...Say what now?"

"And I was so certain you would have wanted it." Sarutobi carried on talking to himself, pretending not to notice her reaction as looked over the scroll. He let out what was clearly a fake sigh, "But I suppose there is I nothing I can do about it. As you had so adamantly pointed out to me, I cannot force you to take such a _dangerous_ B-rank mission."

From the opposite side of Naruto, I saw Shikamaru stir. He was still in his slouch but his eyes we no longer focused on the clouds. It was a subtle thing, the way his eyes swirled onto the Hokage, but to anyone who knew him could tell he was paying attention now.

Naruto on the other hand looked liked she just found out that her favorite pet had died. "But...But...you didn't say anything about a B-rank."

"I was going to but you never let me finish." Sarutobi tried to reply nonchalantly, but as he caught sight of Naruto's devastated expression he had to lower the brim of his hat to hide his amusement. "Then again I cannot rightly blame you for rejecting to take the mission if you felt you were not up to it. Rather, I must commend you for it. Knowing your limits and refusing to take a mission that you felt was beyond you took a level of maturity I did not expect from you Naruto. Well done."

"Still," He admitted as he pulled open a drawer and began to lower the scroll into it. "It is a pity that after all the trouble I went to set it up for you, you'd reject it. I suppose I must look for another another more qualified Genin team to complete it instead-"

Naruto slammed her hand onto the Hokage's desk so hard it literally leapt off the ground.

"Give it to me." My blonde teammate spoke, voice devoid of any emotion. "Give it to me now."

Sarutobi paused to look up at Naruto with feigned surprise, completely disregarding the deadly look she was giving him. "But Naruto, I thought you didn't want it."

"Don't mess with me old man!" Naruto growled as she inched her way closer to the Hokage. And by that I didn't mean she walked around the desk, the girl was literally clawing her way over the desk on her hands and knees in an attempt to get to him. "Give me that damn scroll!"

The Hokage soon found himself gripped by the front of his robes by four and a half feet of enraged blonde. Despite being manhandled by a Genin – an act that would have been considered high treason in any other situation – Sarutobi just chuckled affectionately at the girl.

"I take it that you've changed your mind then." He tipped his hat back, "In that case allow me to ask you again. Team 7, will you accept the B-rank protection mission to the Land of Waves?"

"_YES-YES-YES! __WE'LL TAKE IT!__" _

The windows literally rattled in their frames, sending a flock of birds fleeing to the air from a nearby tree and caused what sounded like every dog in the village to howl in pain.

Years of experience from hanging around Naruto gave me a rough idea of what to expect from blonde when she heard the offer, so before she had a chance to so much as open her mouth, let alone reply, I had both my hands firmly pressed against my ears.

And if the way Shikamaru winced in pain and clutched his ears was any indication, it was a good thing that I did. My fellow teammate shot Naruto a half-hearted glare before he looked away, muttering something under his breath about loud women and hearing loss.

Had it been any other time Shikamaru would have found himself receiving a cuff to the back of the head from Naruto for the comment, but our resident blonde either didn't hear him or was too excited to care from where she was standing before the Hokage.

"Naruto, calm down." The aging Hokage gave his surrogate granddaughter an indulgent smile, "I know you're excited but you can't just accept a mission without thinking on it."

"What is there to consider?" Naruto shot back, grinning way to widely at the news, all her previous anger gone like mist under the morning light. "It's a B-rank missions, Jiji, a _B-rank!_ Of course we'll accept. Why wouldn't we?"

"Because this _is_ a B-rank mission Naruto. I don't need to tell that it will be nothing like you've ever done before. The danger is real and it will not be you alone who would be put at risk. Therefore the decision is not yours alone to make," Sarutobi removed his pipe from his lips and pointed the stem at the rest of us, "It is your entire team's. As such, I will not approve this mission unless every member of Team 7 agree to take it."

Immediately Naruto released the Hokage to leap of the desk before turning to face me, wearing the the most pleading, puppy eyed look she had. Her eyes actually seemed to grow a couple of inches in size as she looked up to me, teardrops reflect off the sunlight glistening in her eyes.

Naturally, I knew she faking. And just as naturally, I folded.

"Fine," I caved, any lingering doubts I had about involving myself with Danzo disappearing in the face of eagerness. I never could deny her anything she really wanted. "Well take the mission."

"Alright!" Naruto cheered, proving my suspicion correct as her pitiful expression was immediately replaced with excitement. "We're going on our first B-rank!

"Wait! I object!" Shikamaru interjected, raising his hand in the air as he did so. "I don't remember agreeing to-"

Without even bothering to look his way, Naruto raised up her foot off the ground and stomped down.

_ Hard_.

A tremor ran though the entire room, sending all the furniture shaking. When it finally stopped a couple of seconds later, Shikamaru slowly lowered his sights and glanced downwards, just in time to see Naruto removed her foot off the ground, revealing a rather detailed impression of the soles of her shoes imprinted deep into the stone floor.

Looking down at the crater – which was only millimeter away from hitting his toes – Shikamaru swallowed loudly and, very wisely, lowered his hand. "...I withdraw my objection."

"Excellent." The Hokage said, easily ignoring the blatant strong arming of our teammate. I suppose he had his share of experience with dealing with unmotivated Naras. "Then seeing that you are all in agreement, I hereby assign Team 7 to the mission."

At this point Kakashi finally glanced up from his book. "Wait, doesn't anyone want my opinion?"

"No." Naruto, Shikamaru, me, and even the Hokage replied as one, all of us giving the grey haired man a deadpanned look. Hell, I think even Tora glared at him. No matter what, we all knew that we'd be better off without asking him as Kakashi's input would just make things worse.

Seeing this, Kakashi just shrugged and returned to his book.

"Now Team 7," The Hokage turned to address the rest of us, "your assignment will be to escort the client, a bridge builder by the name of Tazuna, to the Land of Waves-"

The Hokage spent the next several minutes going over the details of the mission with us, and I wasn't too surprise to discover how different it was from the show. After everything I had went through so far, I would have been astonished to find that the show had gotten it entirely correct than the other way round.

On the surface, it wasn't too different from what I remember but the more I listened, the more apparent it became that for all the superficial similarities this was an entirely different ball game.

For one thing Konoha was very much aware of Gatō's involvement in the Waves, along his desire to prevent the bridge from being completed at any cost. Another difference was the overall objective of the mission. Rather than simply guarding Tazuna, our primarily objective was to secure a trade route between the Land of Fire and the Land of Waves. And with Gatō choke hold on the ports, the only way that objective could be completed was via the construction of the bridge that Tazuna had been working on.

I paid rapt attention to all of this, mentally noting all the differences and filing them away so that I can better scrutinize over the changes later in private.

"-you are to meet you client at the main gates tomorrow morning at 7 am sharp." After finally providing with all the basic information he felt we would need, Sarutobi began to wrap up the briefing and held out the mission scroll towards our Sensei, who had been engrossed with his reading the entire time. "All the necessary details for the mission have already been written in the scroll."

Snapping his book shut, Kakashi pushed himself off the wall and approaching the waiting Hokage at a lethargic pace. Slipping his book into his side pouch, he reached out to the offered scroll with his other hand-

***BANG***

\- Tora sat up straight, startling all of us as she slammed her ass onto the desk she had been lounging on so hard that it rattled. Kakashi paused for a moment to glance at the cat, only to find her blankly staring back at him with wide open eyes. After a second our Sensei shrugged and took the scroll from the Hokage's outstretch hand, easily ignoring Tora's behavior.

It wasn't as if this was the first time Tora behaved this way around Kakashi, and I doubted it would be the last.

It seemed that Kakashi was the only person who still seemed able scare Tora anymore, as whenever he grew too close to her, she would immediately press her ass against a solid object. Not that I could blame her. If I had gone through what that poor cat had, then you'd bet your last dollar that I would make sure I had something solid between my anus and Kakashi's fingers whenever he was around.

…What the hell is wrong with my life that I can think of that sentence and be completely serious?

* * *

Despite the sunlight pouring through the window, none of it seemed to touch the room. The warmth of the morning rays failed to reach past the glass panels, its light unable to diffuse the gloom that gripped the place, rather it only seemed to deepened them as the shadows cast by the light grew darker.

Beneath the shadows of his hat cold eyes peered out, the warmth they held just seconds ago missing as they locked onto the door that the three children and a young man had walked through.

It was as if with their departure the grandfatherly old man that they had talked to had departed with them, and now what sat it his place was something entirely different. A creature infinity more jaded and ever so very weary.

Nothing remained of the man that a little girl called Jiji.

Here sat the Third Hokage, the Sandaime, the God among killers.

And it was there, in that quite empty room, that the Sandaime asked a question.

"Are you sure of this?"

There should have been no one left to answer.

Kakashi had long gone, taking his charges with him, and even his ever present Anbu guards had left their post at a signal from the Hokage. There was no one left in the room but he.

Someone answered anyway.

"Of course."

It was like the slow ticking of clock, the rhythmic tapping of his cane that herald his arrival, the only noise from the otherwise silent intruder, leaving no question to his identity. With silent steps he drifted from the shadows, appearing in the room like a specter, bandaged arm cradled in his robes.

"For this, we cannot send anybody else." Danzo hobbled over to the seated Kage, still playing the role of the cripple even now in the privacy of this office, away from prying eyes.

"There are others." The Sandaime contradicted, voice flat, not so much cold as sterile, "Perhaps not as suited or capable but-"

"-But nothing." Danzo lowered himself into one of the vacant seats before the Hokage's desk, the tip of his cane cradled in both his hands. "Momochi Zabuza may not be the most powerful Shinobi the Mist has ever produce but he comes close. As an assassin he is nearly paralleled. In the land of waves, surrounded on all sides by his element, in a terrain he has grow familiar with over, any team we send will either be ripped apart or incur such losses that we can ill afford. If we desire any chance of flushing him out without suffering heavy causalities we need to send someone capable enough to both track and bring him down in a one-on-one confrontation. The only individual that suits our needs and is not currently involved in a crucial mission is Hatake Kakashi"

"I fear," Danzo carried on after a moments pause, "that our failure to anticipate the recent developments at the Waves have left us ill positioned to react to the situation. We have little other choice."

"What of your precious Root?" Hiruzen demanded, still not taking his eyes off the door. "Can they not take care of this?"

"No. I have none stationed in the Wave at the present. At least none that can hope to fight the likes of Zabuza and come out alive. The majority of my operatives are primarily infiltration specialists, Hiruzen, you know this. They were never meant to engage in open combat and are ill equipped to handle someone of Zabuza's caliber. The few that are, are currently stationed elsewhere, and I can't risk recalling them from their current assignments without compromising both them and their missions."

The words Danzo spoke were not something Hiruzen hadn't heard before. He had been told the same thing by the very same man himself a little more than a week ago, when the situation was first brought to his attention. But if Danzo felt any disgruntlement at being forced to recite the information for a second time he showed no signs of it, his single working eye continued to observe his Hokage's stone faced expression as he spoke, who eyes had remained locked onto the door.

When he finally finished speaking a silence drifted between the two. Danzo was content to wait for the other to break the silence first, while Hiruzen appeared to not even have noticed Danzo had finished speaking.

At long last, what felt like a small eternity later, the Sandaime pulled his eyes away from the door and set them upon his oldest friend. "…And there was no one else we could have sent?" Though he already knew the answer, Hiruzen felt the need to ask anyway.

"And pray tell, who?" Danzo questioned plainly, "Who else is there? Jiraiya perhaps? Or maybe you'd like to call back Tsunade once again? The first is missing, again I might add, while the other is more likely to spit on our faces than agree to help. No old friend, there is no one else available to us."

"There is Tenzo." Though Sarutobi looked doubtful at his own suggestion. "Though I suppose we can't afford risk exposing his abilities so early."

"No, we cannot." Danzo agreed. "Even if we were willing to, I'm not confident enough in his abilities to accomplish this mission. Tenzo, powerful he may be, but the Demon of the Mist has survived far worse in the past. We need someone to guarantee success without suffering loses, which is what makes Hatake so suited for the task. Both S-rank Ninjas and those who can fight them are rare even in the best if times, and these days certainly aren't. Hatake is one of the very few we have left, he is too valuable an asset to keep off the field for long. Already my spies tell me that his absence has been noticed, and if he stays away for too long I fear that others may see it as a sign of weakness."

The illusion of Konoha's power, something that the two of them had spent almost every day of the last twelve years trying to maintain. Since the night the nine-tailed fox broke free from its prison.

It was impossible to completely explain the scale of the devastation Konoha had suffered that day. It was the single biggest disaster the Leaf had ever suffered and even today, over a decade later, it has yet to recover from its wounds.

To put it plainly, Konoha barely managed to survive as a nation afterward. The demon fox had killed so many of their numbers that the Leaf simply did not have the numbers to sustain itself, not when they have yet to recuperate the loses suffered during the war. Had any of the other Villages ever learned the true extent of the damaged they had suffered, Konoha may very well have ceased to exist.

The only reason they managed to survive for so long was because the other Villages were plagued with their own set of problems. They too had come out of same war Konoha had, suffering even bigger loses than the Leaf had, and that was not their only worry.

The Mist were embroiled in a civil war, and were far too busy killing each to take notice of their old enemy's weakness. The Sand were not only allies to the Leaf but they also suffered from their own internal issues. A scarcity of fertile land meant they lacked the resources to sustain a large population, keeping their numbers the smallest out of all the Great Villages. Coupled with deteriorating relationship with their Daimyo, along with troubles controlling their own tailed-beast, meant they could ill afford to take advantage of the weakness of others.

The Stone suffered the biggest losses out of all the villages during the war, and from the Leaf no less. And while eager to take revenge, they were also skittish, the lesson taught to them by the hands of the Yondaime the last time they pointed their blades at the Leaf were not so easily forgotten. So while they may have wanted vengeance, there were not willing to commit themselves to another war against the Leaf unless their victory was certain.

Out of the Five Great Hidden Village, it was the Cloud that presented the greats risk to Konoha. They, out of all the Hidden Villages, were the only ones in the right position to take complete advantage of the Leaf's weakened state, and they almost had. It was only thanks to the back breaking effort from the survivors of the Kyuubi's attack that managed to stop them from trying.

In face of the devastation they suffered, the Shinobi of Konoha refused to show any weakness. Despite the steep drop in the numbers, the Village continued to maintain the status quo. After but a single day to recover, Konoha had resumed accepting mission, taking ever assignment offered to them by clients, sustaining the same level of activity they had before the attack. And though it took every Shinobi and Kunoichi left with four working limbs – sometimes not even that – working double shifts to make it work, they managed to pull it off.

All so that they may show the world that though Konoha bleeds, it was still strong.

And it had worked.

The almost instantaneous recover after the attack had cast doubt on the extent of the damage Konoha had sustained, making those willing to take advantage of their time of weakness to hesitate and falter. And though there were some a few probing attempts from other villages, such as the near disastrous Hyuuga Incident by Kumo, Konoha had managed to maintain a strong enough presence of strength that none were willing to risk a full out war with them.

And now, after so many years, Konoha is almost restored to its former glory.

They were close, oh so very close. Just a little more time and children born after the Kyuubi attack will become Shinobi in their own right, ready and able to take the place of those who had fallen that day. But there were not quite there yet. They needed more time, just a little more and the illusion of strength that they had tried so hard to maintain will become a reality. But till then, the old guard had to maintain their vigil until the new generation were ready to take their place by their side.

"And the children, what of them?" Hiruzen asked, getting to the heart of his distress. "Leave them behind, there is no need to involve them in this."

"I disagree." The one-eyed man said in reply. "There is every reason to involve them. The experience will be good for them if nothing else."

"Not if Zabuza ends up killing them it won't!"

"Hatake won't let him." Danzo stated assuredly, easily disregarded the killing intent being leveled his way with a practiced ease. "Zabuza will be too busy fending him off to concern himself with others."

"You know Zabuza isn't alone Danzo." Hiruzen pointed out. "What of them? Kakashi can't be everywhere and do everything while fighting Zabuza at the same time. He will not be able to protect the rest of his team while he fights."

"Other than Zabuza, the rest won't pose any real threat." Danzo waved off the concern. "They're riffraff. Nothing more than a thugs and _Rounin_." A tiny sneer actually appeared on Danzo's lips, as if merely speaking the word left a bad taste on his tongue. "Gato is far too fond of his money to willingly part with more of it than he has to. The only people he has worth noting at the two that Zabuza has brought with him, and the Demon Brothers are barely C-rank Ninjas. If even that. Against a Jinchuuriki that can multiply herself and survive against any injury shot of decapitation, an up-and-coming prodigy with eyes that can see danger coming from miles away matched with the pragmatism to run away when needed, and then there is Shikaku's boy, who appears to have inherited both his father's intelligence along with inclination to avoid any danger or hardships."

"I have absolute confidence in their abilities to keep themselves alive." Danzo actually sounded as if meant it. "They may lack the skills to actually aid Hatake in the mission, but they needn't have to. Hatake can handle the mission alone. The children need not do anything other than survive."

"Why, Danzo? Why do you want to see them on a battlefield so strongly."

"So that they may have their eyes opened." The leader of Root replied. "We both know that all the training we put them through in the Academy is meaningless in the moment they set foot on a battlefield. For all the decades we spent developing training techniques, we have yet to discover a way to prepare someone for their first taste of battle. So many promising students walk out of the Academy doors only to die by a kunai in the hands of some drunken bandit because they ended up freezing when they should have acted. In the end, it simple meant they lacked what it took to survive as a Shinobi. The only way to find out for sure if they have what it takes is to throw them in the fire, and see if they manage to walk back out. You know this is true."

"But not this soon." A hint of pleading could be heard in the old man's voice. "They are still children Danzo, only twelve, don't send them into something like this."

Instead of answering right away, Danzo stared at his Kage, his one eye seemingly able to something that no one else could. After a time, in an almost gentle tone of voice, he spoke. "Do you recall what happened that last time you trained children, Hiruzen?"

The reminder brought a grimace to the Hokage's face, forcing him to look away, his already grim expression darkening even further.

That has always been a sticking point between the two.

Once, a long time ago, Sarutobi Hiruzen had been given three bright pupils to train. The best of their generation, each showing more potential than almost any other student to have come out of the Academy since its founding. The three, while different, were all brilliant in their own way. Orochimaru, a well behaved obedient child who excelled in almost everything he tried his hand in and soaked up knowledge like a sponge. Tsunade, a Senju, with a control over Chakra that was as near damn perfect that either of them had ever seen, even as a child, matched with a passion and intelligence that left no doubts she would achieve great things. And finally was Jiraiya, who though lagged far behind the other two academically and in the other more traditional fields of the Shinobi arts, had shown clear signs of hidden genius and untapped potential in Fuinjutsu.

All who looked upon the three knew they would one day become great, if only there were given the chance.

And they were.

The children were given to the care of the Sandaime, the greatest living Ninja that Konoha could call its own, and it was under his guidance they bloomed, his teachings bring out the greatest locked inside of them. The potential that they shared was carefully grown and cultivated into genuine talent, producing something that had never seen before or since.

A team comprised entirely of S-rank ninjas.

Once Hiruzen would have taken pride in that knowledge. That the three children he had met so long ago, who he had come to think of as his own children, had grown so strong and achieved so much. But now the bitter reminder left him feeling empty, none of old pride anywhere to be found.

What should have been his greatest achievement had instead become his greatest failure.

And his greatest living shame.

He been given the best of a generation to be trained under him, so they may learn all the skills and strength he possessed. And he had, he succeeded in teaching them be strong. In body at least.

It was forging their character where he had failed.

One had abandoned her home, leaving all her comrades behind to a live of decadency, gambling away the last of her family's fortune and drinking her life away. The other could be found gallivanting all around the world, never remaining in one place for too long before disappearing to somewhere else, rarely ever returning to her home village, and now more famed for her perversion and skills as a smut writer than her abilities as a Ninja.

As for the last?

The worst traitor the Leaf had ever seen since Madara. An inhuman abomination as likely to kill a child as he would an ant.

That was the fate of the three children given to him.

The minds of all three were broken. While the war could be partially blamed for it, Hiruzen could not find it in himself to agree. He was not so unaware of his shortcomings to put the blame entirely on others. He was the responsible for them, it was he who raised them, and for all three to become like this. Who could he blame but himself?

The aged Hokage shut his eyes, the only outward sign of the now familiar ache he felt fill his chest. He knew had always been a failure as a father. His son never failed to remind him. Perhaps that is why when he tried to be a teacher, he failed at that too.

He refused to take any other students after. No matter how many times he had been asked, he denied any request to start a new team. He refused to subject any more children to his failures.

He had also been reluctant to allow Danzo any students for much the same reason. While he would not stop him from finding orphans and other unfortunates to train, he refused to subject any child from his village to his training. As much as he trusted his old friend to do what was needed, he feared he would go too far in his passion to fulfill his duty. So while he allowed him to take a hand in training his Anbu, he kept him far away from the truly innocent children. But like most things the times had forced his hand, and he had been forced to grant his old friend a single student from the his village.

The results has spoke for themselves.

From the three Hiruzen had been given, one a traitor, one a drunkard that had abandoned her village and the last is almost never seen, doing whatever catches her fancy.

While the one child he had given to Danzo was Uchiha Itachi.

The results were clear.

Hiruzen had tried and found himself wanting as a teacher. Though he held no ill will to his old friend, it pained him that he had proved to be such inadequate a teacher that Danzo of all people had proven to be a far superior.

Sometimes he felt as if the Heavens were laughing at him.

"Did you not promise me a free hand to mold these three?" Danzo asked rhetorically, not even bothering to wait for an answer before he carried on. "Then stand aside and let me do my job."

"I gave them to you to train them, not kill them." Hiruzen replied, heat managing to seep into his words, the first sign of emotions leaking into his voice from his otherwise sterile tone. "If I allow you proceed, they may die."

"They may," Danzo allowed, nodding. "But that is a risk we all share. No one who bares the name of 'Shinobi' can expect to do do so without putting lives at risk. The only difference with these children is that they experience this truth earlier than most – at least from the current generation. We were younger than even them when we first experienced battle. Or have you forgotten?"

"No Danzo. I have not."

"And in exchange for the danger they will experience, I will make them strong."

"And what if you don't? What if this plan of yours ends failing you in the worse way possible and they end up losing their lives. What then?"

"Then we do what we have always done, we move on and begin anew with the next group. The weak fall and the strong survive, that is the reality of the war we find ourselves in."

"We are not at war, Danzo."

"Tell that to the troops that keep dying every day on the field." Danzo turned to look over Hiruzen's shoulder, at the sight of the sprawling village of Konoha. "To the people living within the walls of the Village we have enjoyed a decade of peace, but to us who have to protect their peace, our war has never ended. In shadows the battle between the Hidden Villages continues to wage, unseen by all who walk in the light. As it should be."

Silence regained between the two for a moment as Danzo took the chance to look over the village he has sold his soul to protect, taking in its beauty.

"You know we have no other choice Hiruzen." As Danzo turned his sights back to his Hokage, he wore a look on his face that might have been mistaken for concern had it belonged to anyone else. "Too many mistakes have been made, we cannot afford to take our time any longer. You are dying."

Hiruzen quietly chortled, amused despite himself. "I'm hardly dying."

"But you are." Danzo denied. "As a Hokage you are most certainly dying. Slowly, every day, little by little you are dying. Each passing days see you grow weaker, your limbs more frail, your legs no longer seem to move as fast, your hands not as certain as they once used to be, your eyesight not as clear, and every morning finds you more weary than the last."

Danzo leveled his gaze to his oldest, and perhaps only, friend. "You are dying old friend. We are running out of time, we have already suffered too many failures already as it is. We cannot afford to take our time any longer."

Hiruzen sat silent for a time, his gaze once again returning to the door. Danzo said nothing, content wait and let his old friend think. At last the aging Hokage sighed, "But this?" He asked, looking every bit of his six and a half decades, "You may end up breaking them old friend. They're still only children."

"What else would you have me do?" Danzo asked, holding his hands open. "Coddle them? Have them trained within the safety these walls on training mats with blunted weapons, never exposing them to any real danger, only to watch their potential wither away? Is that what you would have me do?

"Raised in absolute peace can kill a child's growth just as much as kunai to their throat could. Kindness may make a child a strong but too much of it can stunt them just as easily as cruelty could, perhaps even more. They need to be exposed to hardship of the world hidden beyond these wall if we ever want them to meet our expectations. You know I speak the truth, the greatest among us have all had one thing in common. We all knew war as children."

"...Perhaps." The Hokage relented. "But doesn't mean I have to like it."

Danzo stared at his old friend for a long time, seeing something there he did not expect to find. "Are you sure that not letting your sentiments for the child cloud your judgment, old friend."

"No." The Sandaime shook his head. "No." He repeated. "I knew that Naruto's fate would be this the moment Minato sealed the Kyuubi in her. As much as I wished it to be otherwise, there is nothing I can do to change it."

"It was not the Jinchuuriki I was speaking of."

Hiruzen stiffened, his expression turning frigidly cold. "...Exactly what is it you are implying, Danzo?"

The tone was spoken in warning, like a drawn knife.

"The resemblance in uncanny, I must admit." Danzo admit, carried on as if not noticing the threat that hung between them. "Not so much in their features perhaps, in that regard they are certainly different, but in everything else?" He raised one shoulder in a half-shrug, "I can not blame if you see him in the boy when the similarities are clear for all to see."

Hiruzen stared at Danzo stifling, back straight, eyes smoldering.

Them, like the puffed out flame of a candle, all the rage in him disappeared, leaving him feeling weak, tired and so very old.

"...I admit, I keep seeing Orochimaru in him. When he was still…" Hiruzen grimaced in pain. Even after all these year, despite becoming to familiar with the sensation the sting of his betrayal still burned as freshly as the day he had found his student in those sewers.

To realised what the boy he had come to love as a son had become.

Hiruzen shook his head, clearing his mind from that particular train of thought. "It is hard not to see him sometime when I look at him. Not when there is so much of the good I used to see in the boy."

The bad too, went unspoken.

Shutting his eyes Hiruzen could still see him, as clearly as if had stood before him – not the man he had become but the boy he had once loved. And every time he looked at the young Hyuuga that had latched onto his surrogate daughter, he could not help but see him in the boy.

The fates were cruel, to have a reminder of his greatest failure dangled in front of his face.

They were so very much a like. At times it was surreal looking at him, the boy could have passed for the brother of his old student were it not their eyes and the tone of their skin.

Their prodigal talent, the way they spoke, the unnatural maturity that they held themselves with – even among the children of Shinobi -, their fascination with chakra, their cunning, the unsettling air they unconsciously gave out that would have set them apart from their peer even if their talents had not. Even the way the styled their hairs were not so dissimilar.

Then there his adoration for his family – his mother and sister in particular – that reminded him of how Orochimaru would cling to his parents. A mama's boy, that was what Tsunade used to call him. And she would have been right too, were it not for the fact that he clung to his father just as fiercely.

For better or for worse, Orochimaru had always been a pure child. He threw himself fully into anything he did, he would either love something completely or nor at all. No half measureless, he would obsess or disregard, no middle ground.

Then the day came when he stood before his parent's grave, and was faced with death, the inevitability of it all, it terrified him, and that purity was twisted into something else.

_What is this?_

_ Ohh! That's the skin of a white snake, must have been hard to find._

_ I've never seen something like this._

_ Haha, to be honest same with me. That's something very rare you don't get to see often._

_ ...Why is it white?_

_ Hmm...no one really knows. No one even thinks about that. For a long time now, the white snake has been a symbolized the image of good fortune and rebirth. _

_ Good fortune and rebirth…_

_ The fact that you found it here at this grave might be some sign. Maybe your parents have been reincarnated somewhere...so that someday...they may meet a grown up you._

_ ...When will that be?_

_ ...That I don't know._

'_Perhaps,__' Hiruzen_ thought to himself the thousandth time, '_if he hadn't __said that to him he would not have became what he is today.__'_

How would he have known the consequence of his actions. He had been trying to comfort a grieving child. If he only knew how his words would end up spawning a monster, he would have held his tongue.

And now, a second child appeared before him. What is a chance for him to fix past mistakes or a warning that history would repeat itself?

Hiruzen glanced at the cat sitting on his desk, who was staring blankly at the wall, ignoring their presence. It did not slip his mind how this tiny cat had reacted to the boy's presence. While the Kyuubi may have been sealed and its presence muted, for a Nekomata to react so badly to a child of only twelve was unnatural. It cemented to him like nothing else could have that he had not merely imagined the similarities between the two, and that the boy may hold more in common with his old student than just the obvious.

Were it not for the clear attachment the boy held for Naruto, he may have been more concerned. It didn't take a genius to see the incredible level of genuine affection the pair shared for each other, it was as clear as the sun in the sky for anyone who bothered to look. And he had been watching the pair for over six years now. He had no doubt in his mind that either one of them would rather cut their own hand off than harm the other.

It was for that reason above any other that had Hiruzen convinced that Hikaru was not a danger to the Leaf. So long as he had Naruto to keep him anchored, along with his family, he doubted he would ever have need to fear that Hikaru would take a similar path to that of his old student.

Besides, Konoha had more than one mentally unstable Shinobi who remained loyal. Danzo aside, anyone who met Maito Gai could attest to that.

But even that knowledge couldn't completely erase his fears. He knew all too well how cruel the world can be.

What would happen if one day, Hikaru returned to the village only to discover he had lost his family to an attack?

What would happen if he awoke up one day to find that Naruto had fallen in battle?

Would Hiruzen find him standing before a grave, like he had once before, consoling another grieving child? And this time, would a white snake happen to shed its skin on her grave?

No matter how unlikely it was to happen, Hiruzen could never allow that come to pass. Konoha had already spawned one abomination under his watch, he will not allow it to create a second. It may have been that very reason above any other why Hiruzen had allowed himself to be persuaded by Danzo and grant him his request to take over the boy's training. If there was anyone who knew how to tame a monster, it was him.

Clearly, Hiruzen could not trust himself to handle it. Not after the last time.

"But his resemblance to my old student is not why we are here." Hiruzen said, returning to the topic at hand with a shake of his head. Raising his eyes to his Danzo, who remained seated across, looking as unmoving as a bolder and just as unfeeling, Hiruzen felt the winds were taken out of sail

"Very well," Releasing a tired sigh the Hokage gave his reluctant consent to his oldest friend, sinking back into his chair. "I will leave this matter up to you discretion."

Danzo nodded solemnly. "Thank you."

And like that, the tense atmosphere quickly began to dispel.

Picking up his pipe from where he had abandoned on his desk, Hiruzen's well practiced fingers swiftly pushed a pinch of tobacco into it before lighting with a flick of his fingers and a bit of elemental manipulation. Raising the lit pipe to his lips, he took a long drag before puffing out, letting smoke drift around him in a comfortable haze. Danzo on the other hand just remained seated, cane held in his hands, content to remain where he was.

The two friend fell into an easy silence. For all the unpleasant topics that passed between them over the years, the two trusted each other explicable, enough to relax in the other's presence. How could they not after all they've been through? They have fought by the other's side too many times, trusted one another with too many secrets not to feel comfortable in the others company.

For a moment there they sat, two friends, both old, one bathed in the morning light shinning through the window behind him, the other, seated across from him, hidden in the shadow cast by the former.

Just as they have always been.

"If you'll excuse me," after a long time Danzo finally began to stir. Pushing himself up with the use of his cane, he gave his Hokage a causal bow, "I still have some final preparations to finish before Hatake leaves."

With a nod of dismissal from his old friend, Danzo turned around and began to hobble towards the door, the rhythmic tapping of his cane following all the way there. His hand had already gripped the door's handle by the time the voice reached him.

"Danzo." Pausing, Danzo turned to look over his shoulder at Hiruzen, who was leaning back in his chair, eye looking upwards staring at the drifting smoke, pipe in hand. "What if they die?"

"Then," He stated calmly, as if he was speaking of the whether than the lives of children, "we will have learned that they never had what it took to meet our exceptions. If that proves to be the case then it would be better to learn of this now, than waste any more time and effort training a worthless investment. Live or die, either way," he turned back to the door and pulled open, "we would have gained something of value from this."

And with that, Danzo, the Shadow of the Hokage, stepped out of the office.

Now alone, Hiruzen remained seated in his chair, staring up at the ceiling with a vacant expression. He would have liked to remain there for the remainder of the day, to dwell in his own thoughts, but unfortunately that will not come to pass. Even with everything that was happening with Team 7, he still had other problems that required his attention. There was never any rest for either the wicked or a Kage.

So with another tired sigh, the weary old Hokage straightened up in his chair and went back to work. But before he could turn his attention to paperwork piled on his desk, he felt something nudge his arm. Looking downward, he spotted Tora bumping her head against his arm, either trying to provide comfort or simply demanding attention. He never could quite tell with cats.

Nevertheless, grateful for the distraction she provided he chuckled and gently reached out to scratch behind one of Tora's ears, earning a delighted purr from the unblinking cat.

"Do you ever feel like you've been shafted?" He asked his feline companion, his thoughts lingering on his recent encounter with Danzo.

The cat seemed to immediately still under his fingers, freezing in place so completely it almost was as if someone had hit the pause button. Slowly, Tora swirled its and turned its wide open eyes to stare up at the Hokage with a deadpan look.

"Oh, right." Sarutobi grimaced, "Sorry."

* * *

*******Chapter End***

**Author's Notes:**

That's it for this chapter.

I'm honestly not happy with how it turned, particularity the last third, but I've been away for far too long and I know if I tried to change anything I would have kept writing and rewriting scenes for another month, which is not worth it. I'm sure that now I started posting gain, my motivation to write will be rekindled and I'll begin churning out chapters again in a more acceptable rate.

Anyway I hope you enjoyed the chapter. Especially Tora. Poor kitty. Not to mention Ino. Can the pair ever get a break?

Oh, and a show of hands. How many of you want a Tora Plushy?

Next chapter, we'll see that to start the journey to Waves and discover how different it is from Cannon and what I have planned for Hikaru. Be warned by the end of the next chapter, the plot twists will begin again. I have a lot planned, so be prepared.

Be sure to leave a review on your away our, and thanks for reading.


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